A Promise Unfulfilled

FOCUS READING

Genesis 28:15 (NIV)

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

DAILY BYTE

One year when I was about eight years old, on the night before Christmas, my brother came into my room quietly and locked the door. We had been looking for our Christmas presents for weeks. Every other year we had always found at least some of them. We had a very stealthy procedure. We would patiently and systematically search the house for gifts. Once they were found, we would slit open the tape to find out what was inside, identify the right recipient, and then sneakily replace the tape and return the gifts to their original hiding place.

But that particular year, we had found nothing, and we were beginning to panic.

Until on that night, my brother announced to me – he had found the Christmas presents. It was as though after a season in the wilderness, he had seen the promised land!

This was so exciting. I could hardly contain myself. I asked him to tell me everything about what had he seen. And he described the glories of the treasures that awaited us. It was too much – it was as though God had seen my whole Christmas list and decided in his infinite grace to cater to my every wish!

I asked – where did you find them? I had to see for myself! They’re in the attic crawl space, he said. Oh – I said – the crawl space? It was the darkest, most claustrophobic, most dangerous part of the house – rafters really. I had never ventured up there more than to crack the ceiling panel open and peep inside, quickly slamming it shut. I thought to myself – I can’t do it – I can’t bring myself to go look. I’ll just have to believe my brother and wait to see that glorious vision on Christmas morning.

And so Christmas morning came, with great anticipation on my part for the promises that I had been told about my beautiful presents. One by one I opened them – and present by present discovered that my brother had made the whole story up.
The vision he had described to me was a fake. None of the gifts he had described were there! I should have known not to believe him. This was just the sort of thing that big brothers do to gullible little sisters.
Now, you might be thinking – we’re nowhere near Christmas yet – is this a recycled BDC? No, it’s not.

The emphasis this week is not on Christmas, specifically, but on the promises of God, how we feel when the fulfillment of those promises seems not to be forthcoming, and where to go from there. The story I told has stayed alive in my memory for many years because it was a vivid, early experience in my life of promises made that never came to be. A vision that turned out to be a lie. A hope that turned to disappointment.
I realize now that I would not have had such great disappointment if I had faced my fear and gone to see the truth for myself – and also if I had been focusing on the real promise of Christmas in Christ instead of on a mound of gift-wrapped presents.

But, we all have dips in our lives where our expectations of life and of God turn quickly into disappointment. What promises do you feel have been made to you by others or by God? Have those promises and expectations been fulfilled, or not? Why do you think that is? This week, we’ll be exploring a story of a great prophet who stood on the brink of a promise and found disappointment. Stay tuned.