In this season of drought and dearth in my life, today’s reading in Genesis (chapters 22-24) brought home a point that I reckon I need to hear: God asks us to obey Him, and God provides.  In His time, according to His will, He provides.

In chapter 22, after giving Abraham and Sarah a son later in their lives (according to what He had promised), God provides Abraham with a sacrifice to take the place of his son when Abraham obeys God and is willing to give that son back to Him.

In chapter 23, after Sarah dies, God provides Abraham with a special place to bury his wife.

In chapter 24, God tells Abraham to send his head servant back to visit his clan in Mesopotamia, and from there to find a wife for Abraham’s son.  Abraham takes God at His word, instructs his servant to do as he was instructed, and the servant finds favor with Abraham’s brother and Isaac’s future wife at the well at Nahor.  And somehow this arranged marriage works, because we read that “Isaac loved her.”

I am impatient.  I lose hope too easily.  I forfeit my faith so often when a cloud passes over my life, and the sky darkens a little.

Thankfully, the message in these chapters reminds me that God loves those who (try to) trust Him, and that when He makes promises, He keeps them.  He asks us, in the meantime to hang in there, to not lose heart, and to know that He sees our wants and needs- and that He will come through for us in His timing.  In the meantime, the great gift that He asks from each of us is not simply a burnt carcass on an altar, or iron will in which we track and keep every law in our life.  He just wants us to lean on Him, to find Him dependable and reliable, and to put our faith in Him that for all we want and need, what is best for us, He will provide to us- because He delights in us.  And He simply wants us to delight in Him.

Keep setting an example here, Tebow.  I bow with you in humble dependency and delight in Him.  You do this, undoubtedly, because you know, in a full-hearted and experiential way, that He is there with you, there for you, and that outside of whatever life throws at you, He will provide for you.