MORNING MANNA          10-22-21

” Now Sarai Abram’s wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.”-Gen.16;1-2
Yesterday’s devotion was “Let Go and Let God”. Today I want to focus on the last part of that – let God. Everytime I think of that I think about the times when I took it upon myself to fix things rather than waiting on God. In my effort to make things better I made them worse. Rather than prayerfully waiting forGod to take care of the problem I took matters into my own hands and made a mess.

When I started preaching my idea of a good preacher was to be a rugged, two-fisted, fighting fundamentalist whose mission was to attack every wrong and correct it before the sun went set. I didn’t want to be known as a compromiser so I thought that all that mattered was being right and making others get right. But I was wrong.

I left the first church I pastored after a year because I thought “these old folks aren’t spiritual enough and I can’t help them”. It wasn’t until later, and some lessons from God, that I realized how good that church was. They had to be spiritual to put up with me. They loved me although I didn’t appreciate them.

I now realize running ahead of God is dangerous. In the first place it shows a lack of faith in God. Rather than waiting upon God as we’re told repeatedly, we forge ahead as though we know better than God. That’s stupid! We see an example of this in Gen. 16:1-2 where Sarah and Abraham decide to have a child by Hagar rather than waiting for the promised son.

It’s hard to imagine that a great man like Abraham would be so foolish as to do what he did – but he did. It’s as though he thought he had a better idea than God. But time revealed he was wrong. And the same will happen to you if you run ahead of God. Were we wise we would prayerfully wait upon the Lord to fix the problem. If something requires immediate action God will make it clear to us. Without such assurance we best wait, pray,and give God time to work.

I don’t know what difficulty you are facing, but God knows, cares, and can help. Wait until He does or until He tells you to tackle the problem. The outcome will always be better that way. “Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.”- Psa.27:14. _ HDS