I sang last week my ode to Father Abraham; and on this, the Sunday when we celebrate Father’s Day, I’ll do it one more time – one last time, Praise the Lord!… “Father Abraham had many sons; many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them; and so are you, so let’s all praise the Lord. Right arm, left arm…” and so forth and so on. That Father Abraham and his other half, Mother Sarah, had many children – many descendents – means, of course that it all started with their first born child. If, however, you recall the story as told last Sunday, the promise from God for many children happened when Abraham and Sarah had long since qualified for senior citizen discounts; and Sarah, the story begins, had been infertile those many decades since she had aged out of puberty. The birth of their first born, then, was a miracle from God in fulfillment of God’s promise. Yet the birth of their first born – a little boy – was… complicated. The truth of the matter is that we might learn from Father Abraham on this Father’s Day how NOT to launch into the adventure of parenting; because he, and Sarah with him, had trouble, to say the least, in waiting upon the LORD.

 

     Truth be told, most American’s are not so accustomed to waiting as they once were; or, at least, we don’t LIKE to wait. I microwave my lunch in five minutes or less. My books, along with many of the things I wear and gadgets needed around the house get ordered on-line in a matter of minutes – even seconds – and delivered within a day or two or three. Cash can be acquired in an instant from an ATM. Those who choose to pay for it can watch pay-per-view movies whenever they want. And do you know what? – I seldom drive a car anywhere without using my on-line traffic app. Even if I’ve driven the route a thousand times – to my own house from church, no less – I absolutely do NOT want to get stuck waiting in a loooong line of cars and trucks that are jammed up waiting at the scene of an accident or construction site.

 

     I guess you could say that Abraham and Sarah got stuck in traffic… and grew impatient in the waiting. God had come a’ calling and told Abraham that the number of his descendants would be beyond measure. Yet he and Sarah STILL didn’t have youngsters – not a single one! God, on the other hand, had made a promise, so Abraham believed God and waited… and waited some more. Do you suppose they got tired of waiting after, oh let’s say TEN years??? So what do YOU do when you get impatient?  

 

     Here’s the deal: Abraham got right with the LORD God because he trusted God to make true the promise of children and grandchildren. But just because he was faithful doesn’t mean that he was perfect. Long story short, Abraham had a child with a woman who was not his wife; that is, with Hagar, his wife’s servant – and Sarah, get this, was okay with it! In fact… the whole affair was HER idea. She’d decided to help God out – just a little bit – by making things happen more quickly than God was willing to make things happen — and quickly. And Abraham was only too happy to oblige! Now lest you consider it a terrible scandal, this affair was rather customary in that time and place. If the spouse was infertile, a man could conceive a child with a household servant and regard said child as a member of his own household.

 

     Yet that was NOT God’s plan; that Abraham have a child with another woman! And because it wasn’t God’s plan, the whole scheme went sour. Of course there was tension in the marriage! Sarah and Hagar became viciously jealous of each other, forcing God to rescue Hagar and the baby inside her womb from the dangers of camping out in the desert. Some years later, jealousy raised its ugly head again, leaving Hagar’s son, to Abraham – his name was Ishmael – to die in the wilderness for lack of food and water. But God is good and God blessed the boy with the gift of life and legacy. Yet, still, Ishmael would grow up to have a rough time of it getting along with other people. This whole sad story, and more, can be written off to Abraham and Sarah’s unwillingness to wait patiently upon the LORD God’s promise.  

 

     Now if there’s a lesson in any of this for you and for me, it’s the risk we take when trying to “help God out” because it seems to us that God’s waiting too long to act in the way that WE want God to act. Does God really NEED our interventions, for example, in political election campaigns? Does God’s Kingdom come hinge on how we vote and on who gets elected? Or might God’s Rule on earth be better served by faithful people keeping faith with Jesus’ Way as summarized in his famous Sermon on the Mount? Surely the Rule of God often seems slow in taking root in the affairs of humanity. But God’s promise is seldom amenable to OUR timing of events. God’s ways are not our ways, says scripture; nor is God’s timing always gonna be in sync with our timing. There’s good reason for the virtue of patience to be numbered amongst the fruits of God’s Spirit, as outlined by Saint Paul in Galatians, chapter 5. Patience, after all, is not of human nature; it is, however, of GOD’S nature.

 

     I, for one, have occasionally struggled in efforts toward patience with Melissa and my children. I’ve wanted them to understand what I’m thinking or feeling, even though I’ve not made the time or effort to actually tell them what I’m thinking or feeling. There have been times when I’ve wanted my youngsters to learn and to achieve good things effortlessly without the need of a daddy’s patient, guiding hand. In my better moments I realize just how stupid it is to be impatient with children. There was an instance, for example, when I went to one of Christopher’s athletic events and found myself standing next to another family cheering on another boy. Now a little brother – not more than two years old, I’d guess – was sitting in a collapsible chair. When reaching out to pick up something from the ground, the chair collapsed with him still in it. At that, his daddy exploded. “I told you to sit still and to not move” With that the little guy was scooped up and pushed back down hard into the chair. “And don’t you move an inch,” said dad, “or I’m gonna’ smack your face.” So where was, “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Where was the calm, serene voice explaining the consequences of moving off the chair? Where was the patient understanding that a two year old is curious about the big, wide world. It’s been said, after all, that telling a two year old not to move is like telling Christopher Columbus to put down anchor in a swimming pool.       

 

     “Train children in the right way,” say the Book of Proverbs (22:6), “and when old, they will not stray.” It doesn’t tell us to force children in the right way, or to push children in the right way, or to control children in the right way because we’re in too  big a hurry to wait for them to “get it.” On the contrary: it takes time and patience to teach children the right way, to show children the right way; to model for children the right way – to TRAIN children in the right way. I was graced with a father – God rest his soul – who was quietly patient and kind and caring in the ways of God-like love. We are not doing children – anyone’s children – any favors by hurrying them along without letting them learn lessons from failure; or when we take short cuts by skipping out on talk of ethics and values being learned – or not learned – from TV, movies, other screens?

 

     It’s been said that “the principle part of faith is patience” (George MacDonald). And when I think of waiting faith – when I think of a legacy still waiting, in patience, I think of William Wilberforce. He began a political career in 1780 when he became a member of the British parliament. Five years later he gave over his life to Christ and Christ’s Way – vowing to work, in Jesus’ name, for the improvement of society. At the top of his list was getting rid of England’s trade in African slaves. Having been transformed by the Spirit of the Lord, Wilberforce read accounts of barbaric horror brought on human beings by the slave industry. He felt called by God to bring it to an end – and felt that he’d bring down slavery by first bringing down the trafficking in slaves. At the urging of Christian friends – including a former slave trader named John Newton, who’s better known to us as author of a song titled AMAZING GRACE – William Wilberforce started in 1787 to put together information and eye-witness testimony to make his case in the British Parliament. Shortly thereafter, he offered up twelve resolutions in the House of Commons condemning the slave trade. Two years later he submitted his first bill for the outlawing of slave trafficking. But, of course, his bill was easily defeated: there was too much money and too much profit riding on slavery.

 

     Wilberforce continued throughout the 1790’s to introduce one bill after another for the ending of the slave trade. In every instance was his effort met with frustration and hostility. A bill written in 1804 to kill off the slave trade passed in the House of Commons but was defeated in the House of Lords. The next effort at a bill found him taking on a different tactic – and a sneaky one, at that. At the suggestion of a lawyer friend, he and his anti-slavery friends introduced a seemingly minor bill having to the do with the laws of shipping cargo on foreign registered ships to the colonies of England’s enemies. To tell you the truth, I don’t understand how it worked; but it DID work! The passage of that law of the sea slowed considerably the British trade in slaves until, at last, the trade no longer paid huge dividends. Success finally came in 1807. As tributes were given for his patient, tireless work, William Wilberforce sat weeping as the British trade in slavery was ended forever by a vote in both houses in Parliament. When you do the math, you realize that it took 20 years of disappointment and waiting before William Wilberforce saw God’s will successfully done through his work in British politics.

 

     Twenty years! THAT’S a long time to wait for the fruition of a Christian legacy. That’s about as long as it took for Abraham and Sarah to have a son that they could call their own. Isaac was born, and God’s promise carried through into the future. And goodness knows, but the things I most value in my life are the things for which I waited and prayed for many years — notably my marriage at the age of 36 and the birth of children in my mid-40’s. Oh sure, there will be moments for all of us that are marked by doubt and pain, frustration and even grief as we wait for God’s leading. But you know what they say about good things coming to those who wait, don’t you?  

 

     Remember, too, that it took about two thousand years of time before God’s promise to Abraham of a blessing – through him – toward all families on earth came true. God so loved the world that he sent a son of Abraham – call him Jesus – whose amazing Grace is for all people to the four corners of the earth; whose blessings of love and joy are offered to everyone who calls on him and on everyone who serves him by serving others. Thus is the saying REALLY true that good things come to those who wait patiently on the Lord.