A "Wait" Answer

Pam ~ Have you ever had one of those moments where God reminds you of something so strongly that you just want to stop everything and cry?  I had one of those moments today while I was teaching our Bible lesson at school.

I have a roomful of 23 four/five year old children.  Our daily Bible lesson consists of singing lots of Bible songs, memorizing/reviewing our Bible verses, a doctrinal drill exercise and a Bible story.  Today I continued telling the story of Abram/Abraham.

A couple of days ago, we learned the story of God calling Abram to leave his home and travel to a place that God would show him.  Abram uprooted himself and his family and left, trusting that God would take care of him.  Our story continued to tell how Abram let his nephew Lot choose the best piece of ground for him and his family without Abram getting mad and telling Lot that it was "not fair" for him to have the best.  (I teach four/five year olds.  The lessons are kept fairly simple!! :-)  Abram trusted that God would take care of him.

Our lesson today focused the promise that God had given to Abram that He would make of Abram a great nation.  Obviously for Abram's descendents to become a great nation, Abram needed to have a son.  But he and Sarai didn't have ANY children yet.  So how was God going to accomplish this "making a great nation" thing???

Many (if not most) of you reading this blog already know the rest of this story.  God continued to tell Abraham (God had changed his name from Abram to Abraham) many times throughout the years that he was going to be the father of many nations.  But Abraham and Sarah grew too old to have children.  Had God forgotten His promise to Abraham?  Had God lied?  (I ask my students this question with the most HORRIFIED look on my face!!!  They know how I feel about lying!!!!)

Of course not!!!!!  God would NEVER tell a lie.  He just had a wonderful plan in mind!!!

Here is the part of the story that got to me today.

God ALWAYS answers our prayers!!!  He often answers our prayers with a "Yes".  We like these answers :-).  We have asked God for something and He gives it to us.

Sometimes God answers our prayers with a "No".  These are not the fun answers to get, but God knows what is best for us.  He knows that sometimes what we ask for is not what HE wants for us, and HE always wants the best.  Make sense???

The third way that God answers our prayers is with a "Wait" answer.  I think that this answer is probably the hardest one for me to accept.  At least if the answer is "No" I can process and deal with that.  It's done and over, time to forget about it.  But when God tells me to "Wait", I have to do just that............wait.

I told my students today that God made Abraham and Sarah wait to have their son Isaac because that is what was the PERFECT plan for them.  God showed everyone how powerful HE is when he gave them Isaac.  If they had had children before, no one would have seen God's power!!!!

I told them that God makes us wait sometimes because He wants to give us what is PERFECT for us.  If He gave us everything we wanted, we wouldn't learn how GREAT and POWERFUL He is.

I had to stop for a minute and breathe so that I wouldn't break down in tears right then.

Who am I to question why God is having us wait to meet our children?  MY plan would be to already have them at home with me.  GOD'S plan is different.  I want to have HIS plan accomplished in my life.