Spiritual Treasure
by Conrad Showalter, Interim Pastor at Topeka Mennonite Church
Thankful for Promises, Thankful for Answers
Many people enjoy thinking about
the promises of God and are thankful
for them. What should we expect from
God in various situations of life?
At a prayer meeting some time ago,
I was introduced to a sermon by the
late John Claypool. He was a Baptist
minister whose ten-year-old daughter developed leukemia and died as
a result. In his sermon, What Can We
Expect of God? (preached three years
after her death) Claypool wrestles with
the question of how to understand God
in relation to promises.
Claypool suggested three ways
that God keeps promises, linked to
this verse: But those who wait on the
LORD will find new strength. They will
fly high on wings like eagles. They will
run and not grow weary. They will walk
and not faint. Isaiah 40:31
Running without growing weary
is representative of cooperating with
God and creation in ways that solve our
problems. Getting a filling for a tooth
illustrates collaboration with God’s
purposes for our health. In contrast
to the “miraculous” in which God does
something for us, in this pattern of
promise fulfillment, we work with God
to accomplish something.
The final image of walking without
fainting represents God’s presence
with us in endurance. These are the
“my grace is enough” moments in life.
We simply put one foot in front of the
other and keep walking the journey,
dark and painful though it may be.
Some people have claimed “flying”
as the only legitimate answer from
God, but neither the experience of
the church nor the revelation in God’s
Word supports such a claim. Unfortunately, these expected answers often
result in disappointment, and sadly,
sometimes result in the loss of faith.
In the face of such claims, we do
well to remember the closing verses of
Hebrews 11. Here the writer describes
the range of experiences of those living
by faith—closing the mouths of lions,
receiving the dead back to life, being
victorious in battle, being tortured,
beaten, imprisoned, even being
brutally killed. And then comes this
wonderful reminder of a fourth kind
of answer: All of these people we have
mentioned received God’s approval
because of their faith, yet none of them
received all that God had promised.
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