BE PATIENT for ISAAC OR SUFFER your ISHMAEL
by Russell Durose
The promises of the Lord have a certain longevity that tries anyone's patience.
The Lord gave me this Word just now, as I have just walked in the door from a very full day, of challenges and grace challenges that come with discipling a life in a troublesome life. The Lord is calling us to wait for Isaac. Are you willing? Or are you wanting to produce what is easy and natural? You see when our patience
level reaches a breaking point, we must at that point quieten ourselves, then hold ourselves, until we dominate our flesh. It is here where our battles lie...the impatience of our humanity abort many divine processes.
Between the promise of Isaac and his birth, I estimate that 25 years went by. But in between there was a great temptation that came and manifested itself. The answer which was of divine promised is polluted by a deceitful thought you must collaborate with God...YOU MUST MAKE THAT FIRST MOVE, YOU MUST DO SOMETHING...this was the greatest error ever made, and today we live with its costly consequences.
Rather, let us compare for a moment two women...Sarah and Hannah...Sarah was the initiator of impatience...Hannah was the sufferer for the cause of the promise. For Hannah, the shame and the plaguing of that which was natural, but closed to her, for a season, yet she continued on until she surrendered herself, and God granted her desire. But her wait for the seed promised, took prayers, crying, fastings, torture, yet the benefits are felt today... because Samuel brought in the reign of Saul, through anointing, and then David through anointing.
Let us transport this to your ministry dream...are you willing to wait for your Isaac? Or will you "help God out?" Ishmael spells trouble and strife. He mocks the promise of God...He wars against it. I am certain that in our churches there are so called Ishmaels, who were never truly born again, but go through the religious motions. Yet they cause so much strife. This strife even creates wars, between tribes, creates states and divides worlds. So what does it cost - our impatience? It can cost our very life.
