The Promise

I read this blog post the other day, and while it's on an entirely different subject, one that I can't really relate to any longer, I think it speaks to a greater issue. The author was discussing just a small piece of a larger, complex problem. If you've never read her stuff, go exploring. She doesn't blog super regularly, but when she does, it's raw, it's emotional, it's inspiring, and it's always really clear that she loves Jesus. In this particular post, she writes about a common Christian pastime: promising to wait. She writes about being sixteen and signing her True Love Waits promise card and buying herself a promise ring. In case you aren't versed in this, essentially a promise ring (in this instance) is a sign of a promise to wait to have sex until you're married. Essentially a great principle, a wonderful promise, a beautiful gift to your spouse. But it often becomes something more.

The something more, she explains is the problem. The something more is the belief that waiting patiently, in doing as we're asked, somehow guarantees us our dreams. For her, it's a husband. She's waited patiently, kept her promise, and yet, she's still not married. She goes on to explain that she took off her promise ring at 25, not as an excuse to sleep around, but because she's not waiting any longer... what's she waiting on anyway? Essentially, her argument is that this idea that she and far too many girls were sold, leaves them waiting for a happy ever after instead of falling in love with the One who is already waiting on them. My favorite line is this: "A lot of girls were sold on a deal and not on a Savior".

Uh, yea. Whether married or not, I think many of us could say this very same thing. At some point, we bought into a deal. I know I'm guilty of this, guilty at different times in my life of believing that all I had to do was wait patiently for Jesus to swoop in and deliver on His promise. But what exactly is His promise?

There's one particular verse in the Bible that I've come to hate... err, no not hate, hate the way we humans use it and abuse it. The promise is beautiful, our bending of the words leads to a lot of heartache. Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." Sounds promising, right? All we need to do is delight ourselves in Jesus and voila, insta husband, baby, house, money, etc... right? But it doesn't take too long of living in this broken world to see that believers don't have perfect lives. While I would love for my belief in Jesus to instantly give me an easy life and the promise that all my dreams will come true, it just doesn't work like that. But all too often other Christians, believers, Bible studies, churches, etc. sell us on a deal. A deal with our heavenly Father that says living a certain way, or promising adoration, or putting Him first will bring us fulfillment of our hopes and dreams.

Unfortunately, if we buy into the deal, we become more and more disillusioned with this God as life goes on. We've kept our part of the deal, but how long are we expected to wait? The blogger states it like this, "But many of them [the ladies in waiting]– if they’re honest – will tell you that time has passed, and it’s wrecking their view of God. If this is who God’s supposed to be, then He’s tragically late." All too often those left waiting are frustrated with this Jesus, and so they give up. They decide He's not coming through, they leave the church, they sacrifice morals, they move on. They decide, "if He doesn’t answer these prayers after they’ve held up their end of the bargain, why would He answer any others?"


I'm not waiting on a husband, but I bet you can see how I transpose this same message over my life... babies, yep, you guessed it. I'm waiting on my dream, waiting on my future family. And oh, there is nothing I hate more than when well intentioned believers tell me to trust in the Lord, because He will deliver what He promises. You know what, Jesus has never, ever, not once, promised me a baby. He hasn't promised me a long, happy life with Sam. He hasn't promised me earthly riches, or health, or any of it. Tomorrow is not promised to me. That verse, that verse that gets twisted and broken and changed, it says to "delight yourself in the Lord"... here's the thing, if I was truly, one hundred percent delighted in the Lord, wouldn't He be enough? Would I need a husband, a home, a baby? No, I'd just need Jesus. I'd trust him to provide what He will, to care for me until the end of my days, and to welcome me home when my time has come. Somewhere along the line, I bought into the belief that I deserve a baby, I mean everyone else has one. But really, I deserve death; it is by His grace that I have life at all. And yes, I still get stuck here, still get stuck with the "but everyone deserves death, and yet they still get a baby". Uh, huh, yep, I'm all too often that shallow. The truth is that she did get a baby (or four). And I got a husband. And someone else desperately wants one of those.

We as a people, as believers, as followers of Jesus are sharing the wrong message. We sell Jesus like he's a solution for life's problems and not life itself. But if we change our message, "things could be drastically different for a lot of girls [or guys] wondering why the God they think they learned to follow doesn’t compute. It doesn’t necessarily stop the desire for a husband [or a baby] or end all feelings of loneliness, but it does show a God who provides, loves and gives infinite purpose even to our singleness [or childlessness] rather than a God who categorically denies some who pray for husbands [or children] while seemingly giving freely to others". Aw-haa moment. Isn't that basically what drives us to question His goodness? Isn't it the uneven distribution of gifts that makes us wonder who is to blame? Is it us or is it Jesus? Are we less worthy than our friend? Or is He unfair?

We're asking the wrong questions because we bought into the wrong message. He hasn't broken his promise, He never promised us babies, or husbands, or riches, or even happiness; He promised us an abundant life and eternity with Him.