Jen Baker
Trust God while waiting for your promise
Never give up on the dreams God has placed in your heart, urges Jen Baker.
As a six-year-old child, I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. With an audacious boldness deeply out of character, I declared, “I want to change the world!” A more timid child you could not have found, but God had placed a seed of promise in my little heart: I was born for a purpose, and that purpose involved preaching to nations.
Every one of us carries promises God has placed in our hearts from before we were born (Jeremiah 1:5; Ephesians 2:10; Psalm 139), which he desires to bring about throughout our lives.
Simultaneously, we have an enemy working to ensure that those promises die before they ever see the light of day. It happened at Jesus’ birth and happens to every believer seeking to birth the promises of God.
Throughout the years I have seen many people experience this cycle – belief, hope, lost hope, disbelieve – finally digging a grave, burying their promise in the cemetery of disillusionment.
I have also faced my own deep disappointments, which left me questioning how I could reconcile a good God with a broken heart.
One thing I have learned: I can trust God’s will, even when I don’t understand God’s ways. For God will work all things together for good if we place our disappointment within his loving nature and powerful Word.
God’s Nature is Love
We see that Abraham believed the love of God when he believed the promise of God because real love does not lie. Therefore, what God said is what God would do.
In the dark season, when the passing of time took impossible to another level, Abraham had to trust that love. God cannot choose our thoughts for us. Choosing to trust his love even when we don’t understand his ways develops our faith muscles and allows us to believe his promises when facing broken dreams, loss, disappointment or despair.
I battled debilitating insecurity all my growing years – I was terrified to be seen. But as a 14-year-old I would stand in my bedroom, holding my hairbrush, ‘preaching’ to thousands of people. This was impossible not only because I lacked the confidence, but I wasn’t even yet a Christian!
I love God’s sense of humour! Only he would take a non-Christian girl who was paralysingly shy and plants within her heart a seed to preach his truth to multitudes. God’s love eventually won me over and set me free.
Placing our impossibility in the embrace of his love frees us to worship him, and frees him to work a miracle.
God’s Word
Through the years of waiting – and wondering – at the ways of God, I have learned that God’s promises carry power to sustain them from inception to legacy. There were numerous times I wanted to give up, let go and stop hoping. Whether it was stubbornness or the Holy Spirit (probably both) something would not let me stop believing that childhood declaration.
Just as God cannot choose our thoughts, he cannot choose our words. Recently, when I faced an enormous, immovable mountain, I made a decision to let the Word of God have final authority in my life, without question.
I declared I would not doubt or deviate from what I saw in Scripture, regardless of my circumstances (which were dire). Once I determined to stop voicing doubt and start declaring the truth, the mountain began to shift and doors began to open. Nothing has looked the same since that day.
Believe the Promise
The enemy cannot stand against God’s nature and God’s Word – when we put our faith there, it is game over. You may have been waiting years for your promise to be revealed; trust God in the waiting. I believe your promise will be far more than you could imagine. Remember Abraham? He expected a child; God birthed a kingdom.
About the author
Jen Baker has been a pastor, director and consultant working with the local church and several charities. She has written five books and is part of Bath City Church.
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