Dealing With The Time Element Involved In God’s Promises For Our Lives

When we talk about God’s promise for our lives, we refer to “a solemn pledge, [by God] to perform or grant a specified thing” based on His grace and faithfulness.

As children of God, we have various promises He has promised to perform in our lives. And as you already know, these promises do not take place automatically; a time element is usually involved.

There is always a time lag between when the promises were given and when they are fulfilled in our lives. And it makes a lot of difference how we handle this period in between.

How then do we handle this time element?

In her book, “Possess Your Promised Land,” Fuchsia Pickett gives us the following advice:

“We must be careful not to allow unbelief to grow during a time period that seems to delay the promise of God. God uses time as a tool for the testing of our hearts to bring us into dependence on his supernatural power and childlike trust in His ways.”

Therefore in dealing with the time element involved involved in the promise of God for your life, you must at least do the following:

• Don’t allow unbelief to begin to grow in you. In other words, stay in faith;
• Realise that the time element is being used to test your heart’s commitment to God to bring you to trust in Him completely.

Aim to pass the test – two things you must apply

God’s promises are sure. But you have to properly position yourself to receive their fulfillment.

You must pass the test: trust God completely and wait patiently for His timing.

This is in line with the teachings in Hebrews chapter 6 verses 11-12, where faith and patience are mentioned as the two ingredients we need to apply to inherit the promise:

“We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.” Hebrews 6:11‭-‬12 NIV

Here are clearly told to be imitate those who through faith and patience inherited the promise. So in dealing with the time element involved in obtaining the promises of God for our lives, we must apply two things:

• Faith, and
• Patience.

Without those two ingredients we would easily give up if God’s promises for our lives get delayed.

---

How do you handle delays in your life? Leave a comment.

Advertisement