Until the time that his word came to pass,
the word of the LORD tested him.

— Psalm 105:19

This scripture jumped out to me when I read it in yesterday’s One Year Bible reading of the day!

Has the Lord ever spoken a promise to you or given you a scripture to cling to during a challenging season? Perhaps He gave you a word of hope prior to a difficult time in your life.

So often I’ve lost heart while awaiting the Lord’s promises to be fulfilled in my life. I’m definitely in an “in between” season right now — & here’s the thing. It’s been a long time! For some promises, decades. Many people may even look at my life & think it’s cursed because other people around me seem so blessed in ways I have not been (& especially in the area of His promises to me). Yet I know this isn’t so; I’m just in a waiting season 🙂

Many wonderful, godly, & blessed people in Biblical history found themselves in this same place: Going through years of fiery trials, ranging from horrific to just plain hard. King David (prior to being king). Joseph. Noah. Abraham. (You can read a wonderful rundown of faith-filled believers in Hebrews 11 “The Hall of Faith”).

The Lord gave each of these people a “word” — yet the reality of His word took much, much longer to manifest. They didn’t see the fulfillment of God’s promises for YEARS. Some scholars say 15+ years for some of them, 25 years for Abraham “the father of our faith”, & for Noah they believe it was over 100 years until God’s word came to pass!! Talk about patience & having your faith tested!

Is His Word Testing You?

Are you being tested by God’s promises? Are you awaiting the fulfillment of some beautiful things the Lord has spoken to you? When you’re tempted like I have been to shrug them off & live as if they’ll never happen, losing your faith in His Word, remember this: God MEANT for these words to test you & your faith.

Ugh. But why?

Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

— Romans 5

I’ve always thought this passage meant faith was our initial act of trusting in God & Jesus’s sacrifice — & I absolutely believe it includes that! But I also think it includes our continual faith journey, like the Apostle Paul describes in Philippians 2.

Yes, God is the One who makes it possible for us to have any faith at all & it is NOT our doing — for He gave each of us a measure of faith. This is His grace to us (not based on our works), but we also have a daily choice to believe His Word over the enemy’s very convincing lies.

His Word tests the purity of our faith, & when we respond in belief, it proves our faith is real. This arduous process greatly grows our character & yields a harvest of peace, joy, hope & ultimately LOVE if we let it finish its work in our hearts!

Those are very good things, & He wants us to obtain them all.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

— James 1

The Lord wants us to lack NO THING! That’s why He allows these fiery trials to come & test us, like He did with Job. He really cares for us, even when it seems He’ll never fulfill His Word to us. Our hardships are storing up great rewards for us — both here on earth & in heaven!

Hope Deferred Makes the Heart Sick…

I’ve noticed that, when the Lord gives me a “word of promise” (or prophetic word), the very opposite seems to arise in my life soon after. Maybe it’s the enemy opposing God’s word to me, but it has the effect of testing my trust in Him. His promises to us can be a lifeline to cling to in the bleakest of circumstances.

I’ve also come to realize that we can’t place our hopes in each promise’s fulfillment — because ‘hope deferred’ is a REAL thing &, as Scripture says, it can “make the heart sick”.

Proverbs tells us to guard our hearts, so we must guard what we place our faith in so we don’t fall into a place of hope deferred. GOD must be what we hope in — not circumstances or seeing promises come to pass!! We must trust that “God is not a man that He should lie” — that He always keeps His promises & that He has good things in store for us.

What gets tested in the in-between? Simple… our belief that He’s a good Father & that He’ll really do what He says He will do.

Word of warning… we must not get caught up in our promise(s) happening. Truthfully, it could be a long time before it does (so sorry to say), & we will experience a very rocky journey if we live day-by-day according to if He’s fulfilled His promises yet or not. We must believe in His character, that He WILL in due time — the season just may not have come yet!

To have peace today, we must have faith in HIM, not in circumstances. Joy doesn’t come from fluctuating seasons or events. Joy is truly separate from what’s going on in our lives & is very present even in the worst sorrow. I’ve lived this myself, & so have many of you. Joy is a beautiful thing, & the Bible says no one can take it away from us!

When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

— John 16

This is a hard lesson, yet so freeing. Our Father has reasons for His timing that we can’t see, so we don’t need to figure it all out. Lean not on your own understanding. He often works in unseen ways & for unknown reasons, so it’s futile to try to understand anyway! Our challenge is to simply trust He is good in the process & await His future glory. Our faith in the darkest of times brings Him glory, too!

Yes, He is good even when we don’t see it, or even when we’ve been waiting decades for His promises to unfold. Until then God asks us to REST, stop trying to make it happen ourselves, & believe His promises will come to pass in due time.

He is The Master Artist, painting a picture of His love & faithfulness in our lives that He’ll reveal one day. How awesome that day will be!

While the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as He has said,

“As I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest,'”
although His works were finished from the foundation of the world…

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

— Hebrews 4