Ready for my Until

An interesting truth about the different seasons we face in life is that when God gets ready to act we must be prepared to respond. It requires more time to sow and cultivate than to reap. So it is with our lives, the element of walking through your wilderness experience is much longer than the mountain top places that follow.

Isaiah 42:9 “Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.” The former passes away but the new springs forth, the message “says before it burst on the scene.”

This scripture is demonstrated in the life of Joseph, Genesis 41:14 records “then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon: and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh.” The sowing and cultivating took about 13 years but the moment of fulfillment came immediately.

Psalms 105:19 says “Until the time that his word came: the word of the Lord tried him”. It is the answer to so many of our questions. It deals with the why in your soul better than any passage I know. The until’s in life are God’s. “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.” God knew when this exile named Joseph had had sufficient preparation. He knew how much of Pharaoh’s butler and baker Joseph needed. He knew how much determination the process alone could develop in Joseph. It does not take God long when you are ready. It becomes a battle of faith. Will you, or will you not rest your case upon God’s word? The word of the Lord tried him. There is always an “until” in God’s schedule, when enough has served his purpose. His dream came true when God choose for it to be fulfilled, when God deemed that Joseph was ready.

It is unsettling to contemplate how life makes some people grim and others gracious. Two people can walk through the same valley of discouraging circumstances. One emerges with resentment, the other with resiliency. Tragedy can be the making of some and the breaking of others. Some grow, others shrivel. Why?

What we must understand is that one of the most challenging and difficult lessons in the school of faith-obedience are that the God who gives the dream also prepares the dreamer to realize the dream. What we go through as we move toward our God-given goals is perfectly planned to make great people capable of handling a great dream. So here are a few encouraging scriptures for your season.

1. Do not give up and became discouraged!
Galatians 6:9 and let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

2. Do not cast aside your confidence!
Hebrews 10:35 Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.

3. Be ready, all is not in vain
Hebrews 12:12 wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;

1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

4. Remember, it is God who brings it to pass, not you
Psalm 37:5 Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.

Here is a little illustration, The Chinese bamboo tree starts from a seed. You plant the seed, and the first year you water and fertilize it and nothing happens. Then the second year you water and fertilize it and still nothing happens. This process continues through the 3rd and 4th years as well. But in the 5th year as you continue to water and fertilize the seed, sometime in the 5th year the Chinese bamboo tree grows 90 feet in six weeks. Now, let me ask you a question, did the Chinese bamboo tree grow 90 feet in six weeks or had it been growing all along where nobody could see it?

The question is “are you ready for your until?”