Once, my wife, Jen and myself presented a talk to a church, near Poole. One of the questions they asked us was “Do you shout at God?”
My answer was "Yes, I do shout at God, because I am only a human being. But I do not shout at God because I am disabled, not at all. I shout at God because God is not moving fast enough for my liking".
I think everybody thinks God is not moving fast enough. We can get fed up with God because we cannot see what God can see.
It is like we have got one piece of a puzzle and God has got the rest of the puzzle spread across heavens floor, and He is trying to do this really big puzzle. God has decided to work along side us.
When we pray, God’s favourite word is wait, because He might need to do something on the other side of the world first to get our part in the correct position in the puzzle.
Even though God’s favourite word is wait, He still wants us to ask him for things. In fact, the Bible says we should boldly come in to the throne room of God.
In another part of the Bible it is said we should give God no rest until he does all he has promised. Unlike humans when God promises something you might need to wait a long time but he will fulfil it.
In the Bible there are stories where God promised people something but they had to go through lots of tests and wait for years to reach their promise.
Like Moses.
When Moses was a baby the King of Egypt wanted to kill all the baby boys. So Moses’s mother decided to hide baby Moses in the bull rushes beside the river.
Guess who found Moses?
God does this all the time.
The king’s daughter found Moses and she looked after him in the palace, right under the king’s nose.
So Moses was brought up by the Princess and learned about the ways of the king without either of them knowing what was going to happen.
When God came to Moses to tell him what was going to happen, Moses started to question God.
Moses, thought he was not good enough for God’s use, because, he had a disability.
Did you know that? I will say it again. Moses, who led his people out of Egypt to the promise land, was in fact disabled.
Moses said to God "The people will not understand me", because Moses had a speech difficulty.
Even before Moses story there is this story;
There was a couple called Abraham and Sarah, and they wanted children.
God promise them they would have children one day.
After a few years they thought God had forgotten.
Abraham tried to have a child with a servant, but it was Sarah's idea.
Abraham and Sarah questioned God, even in the Bible times all human beings questioned God.
Going back to the story, Abraham and Sarah did have a child, it was a boy, and they name him Isaac.
When they had Isaac, Abraham and Sarah were 99 and 100 years old, which were funny ages to have a child.
A few years had gone past, when God told Abraham, to give Isaac back to God as an offering.
In those days they killed an animal, like a lamb or a goat, as an offering to say thank you to God.
in the middle of the night God asked Abraham if He could have the promised child back.
God asked Abraham to go to the woods with Isaac and a servant.
Abraham did what God had told him without questioning God.
Abraham, took Isaac, and a servant, to the woods.
He left his servant at the edge of the woods and he took Isaac deeper into the woods.
He laid Isaac on a rock, he held up a knife ready to put through Isaac's heart, at the very last minute an angel shouted "Stop", and a goat ran over, so Abraham killed the goat instead.
God always keep his promises.
Do we believe that?
When God get us to do stuff which we do not understand, we need to do them anyway.
Thank you for listening, until next time.
Ken