Already and Not Yet

Read:   Genesis 15:1-6

Life with God is full of moments that require faith.  Often there are these two seeming opposing realities at work; what we see, and what we don’t see, what God had promised, and yet those promises are not yet fulfilled.  There is a tension between what I am experiencing now and what is yet to come.

The story of Abram exemplifies the walk of faith through such tension.  God clearly tells him, “You will have descendants from your own flesh,” and “Your descendants will be as numerous as the stars.”   And yet, at nearly 100 years old, he was still childless. 

But Abram believes God.  God changes his name to Abraham, which means the father of a multitude. Even when Isaac, his only son is born, how was God going to fulfill this promise with only one child? 

Romans 4:18-25 says:

“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.  This is why ‘it was credited to him as righteousness.’ The words ‘it was credited to him’ were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”

God calls us by faith to embrace the tension between the ALREADY and the NOT YET. 

He tells us that we are “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”  Yet we look at ourselves and realize how hopelessly flawed we are, how often we don’t live up to who God wants us to be.  We are already made perfect in Christ Jesus!  We are a new creation!  Yet we know that we all fall short of the Glory of God.  Embracing this tension helps me to not waver, but be FULL CONVINCED that God has the power to do what He promises.  And He WILL! 

The pathway that lies before me, 

Only my Heavenly Father know.

I will trust Him to unfold me

As He unfolds the rose. 

Maybe it circumstances, shame, grief or pain that is our reality right now.  We know that “someday” we will be with the Lord, but getting through daily life is struggle.  We can anchor our hope, our confident expectation, on the security of who we are today (God’s beloved child) and what we have YET to come.    

Hebrews 6:17-19 “Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath.  God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”