Why does God do what He does, when He does?  The problems of this world seem to have simple answers.  A sick child just needs healed.  A malicious antagonist just needs corrected.  Our problems just need solved.

My prayers rarely just get answered.  Even prayers that are prayed with a faith more than a mustard seed seems to just lie there in transit to heaven.  I writhe in pain here on earth.  I question and struggle.  Why?

In Exodus Moses is given a task that God tells him right up front would take some time.  He was commissioned to demand that the most powerful man in the world free a million slaves.  The answer seemed so easy, God needs to convince Pharaoh to just let them go.  While Moses had no leverage to ask this, the God of the heavens and earth had more than enough power to make Pharaoh do whatever He wished.  And yet we see the drama played out in an increasing tone as each of the 10 plague brings the story closer to a crescendo.

Pharaoh did eventually let the Israelites go.  What God had commissioned Moses to do, He did.  Why did it take so long?

The answer is in Exodus chapter 10

“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord.”

God took his time so that the Israelites would have a story to tell.

We tend to make our problems the focal point of our life.  We have pain and we need God to take it away.  Our frail bodies can be quite bent to these petitions.  But God is writing a bigger story in us.  He is using that pain to write a story on our hearts.  Each story is different with a different hero.  Sometimes it’s the finger of God Himself alleviating the pain in miraculous ways.  Most of the time the hero is another mundane traveler on the road of our life.  Doctors, teachers, friends, and even enemies can play the role of savior.

The goal of God’s work is not comfort.  The goal is to create in us sign posts of His faithfulness.  He gives us the joy of hindsight in how He provided for us in past struggles as we stand at the mouth of a new trial.  His work is building faith in us and glorifying Himself in the process.

The Joy in delayed prayers… “That you may know that I am the Lord”

Obedience is hard. Let no one tell you otherwise. Obedience has always been hard for me. Whether it was about the forbidden cookie on my mother’s counter or the larger cookies of adulthood, saying no to my cravings is never easy. Where is the joy in saying no to yourself? I can’t remember a time that it felt GOOD.

In the Bible God gives a message to a very disobedient king named Saul.

“Does the LORD delight as much in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? Look: to obey is better than sacrifice, to pay attention is better that the fat of rams.” (1 Samuel 15:22)

The message is clear from God’s end, it is more important for you to obey Me than to try and bless Me with the overflow of your labor. This is a tough pill to swallow for all of us. It’s message became very clear in a recent event in my life.

I buy and sell houses for a living. I help people buy and sell their homes and I buy and sell houses for a profit for myself. This is a process that I’ve gotten fairly good at over the years. I can see a deal, run the numbers, negotiate my sale price, and then profit. The most recent deal looked fantastic on paper. It would have been one of the best deals I have ever done. I made the offer, negotiated, and was set to close. Then something happened…obedience.

Over the course of an entire sleepless night God would not give me peace on my decision. I wrestled with him during those lonely hours of the morning. He gave me no reason to withdraw from the deal. Withdrawing would cause me to lose funds that I could not get back with absolutely nothing to show for it. I used all my arguments with God. I explained my case passionately. Still no peace.

So then I broke and said, “God if you’ll provide a way of escape where I can get all my funds back, then I’ll know you want me to withdraw.” I could swear I could hear the angels laughing at my negotiation tactic with the Almighty.

Still no peace.

God wanted my obedience in the hard stuff. He wanted me to bow my knee when my money was on the line and my pride was begging to take a hit. I had to obey regardless of what came of my obedience.

My experience with this deal has given me insight into why obedience is so stinking hard. Obedience requires all of us.   It’s not 10% of us like our tithe. Obedience is the whole kitten caboodle of our pride and will. We set out in a direction that seems best to us. When God confronts us, we have to change our direction. Obedience can make us look like fools. It grates against our greatest lie that WE KNOW BEST.

Obedience demands that we admit that we don’t know best. Our world crumbles when we are asked to obey.

I think that’s the joy of the whole deal. I must give up all of myself to obey but I am in turn receiving something back from God. It may not be my earnest money or pride. The gifts we receive from broken obedience gives us what we can’t receive without it, God. We receive His plans. We are brought into connection with His person. Obedience brings the joy of God’s delight.

When I really think about it, in the history of my life obedience has always given me more than I gave up. Obedience puts us in direct connection with the Author of our life. At its core, this is where joy finds its home.

I’ve been reading through the book of Daniel. I love the stories. It’s really the stuff of movies. It’s a story of four teenage guys taken from their homeland and put through a systematic process to exterminate their previous culture and thinking. They are under the thumb of one of the most powerful kings who has ever walked this earth. The result? Daniel and his buddies bring the most powerful man in the world continually to the realization that their God is far different and far more powerful than anything Nebuchadnezzar has ever known.

It’s easy to feel marginalized in life. When confronted with the powers of this earth, let alone the powers of heaven, it’s easy ask, “how important am I.”

Daniel asked that question. Towards the end of the book of Daniel, an elderly Daniel sits wasting away in obscurity wondering out loud what this whole charade was about. In the midst of his grief, an angel comes to him with these words, “I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed.” (Daniel 9:23)

The game was big that God was playing with the Babylonians and the great kings who ruled them. And yet, it is Daniel who God calls “highly esteemed.” It would be through Daniel that messages would be delivered to these kings. It would be through Daniel that the future would be foretold of the great kingdoms yet to come, kingdoms that our history books know well today.

God has a plan for us. The plan is not about us. The plan is about Him and the story that he writes through those who follow and rebel against Him alike. We are His pen upon the pages of history. To be esteemed in this plan is the great blessings for those who call Him Lord.

We may not influence kings or foretell the fall of kingdoms. However, His plans both big and small in our eyes are of far more relevance than our minds can conceive. For those know Jesus, we have been given the honor of fighting for the hearts of those who don’t yet know Him alongside the King who has Himself won our hearts.

We are esteemed in Christ. Make no mistake about. Unbroken Joy is the mantra of our journey.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a man planted in a field”

“The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour”

As I survey the Gospels it becomes increasingly clear that what is whispered through parables will one day be shouted from the hills of victory. The kingdom of heaven is whispered by Jesus. It is introduced so softly that the world in general will completely miss it. Twelve disciples will see it, believe it, doubt it, and then believe it again. Jesus Himself will be silenced, but only temporarily, by the grave. When all hope is lost the resurrection breaks in with the proof that the Kingdom is not only alive and well but much larger and powerful than mankind ever thought possible.

Even today, the Kingdom with such a great cloud of witnesses, is missed by most. It is the mustard seed that science dismisses away for the sake of more reasonable data. It is the leaven that kings and presidents view only as a group of constituents rather than the order by which they themselves are appointed. The kingdom is small, even still, to the world in which it is crashing into. It is the talk of fictional spiritualists that believe the fables that have been passed down to them. And yet, this Kingdom will one day be seen by all not as a fictional tale but as the true reality by which the perception of our current reality played but only a parody.

The Kingdom of God is a mustard seed, after which it has become full grown all the birds of the air will nest its branches. To understand that it is God who holds the world and not the world who holds God is to begin to understand just how big this Kingdom really is.