How should believers respond when it seems like God is not doing anything?
Believers should resist letting circumstances crush their faith and remember Abraham, who waited nearly fifty years for God’s promise. Instead of concluding God is doing nothing, they should sit back and recognize that God works slowly but surely, trusting His promises will be fulfilled in His own timing.
Les explains that in a fast-paced culture it is easy to lose faith when things overwhelm us, and the human mind quickly asks, “Where is God?” when calamity or accidents strike. He points believers back to Abraham, whose promises began in Ur when he was about fifty. Abraham did not leave Haran until he was seventy-five, did not receive Ishmael until near eighty, and only when he was one hundred and Sarah was ninety did God perform the promise. Abraham had almost fifty years to “sweat the promises” while nothing happened. Les says he cannot blame Abraham for listening to Sarah and having a child by a slave girl, since it seemed God was not doing anything. But that is where people often come from. Believers must sit back and say this is the way God works: His wheels grind slowly but surely. After fifty years of promises, the child finally came.