Friday, November 28, 2014
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When I got my wife a bread maker for Christmas one year, I'm not sure who that present was really for-was it for her or me? I love the smell; I love the taste of fresh bread. I mean, who doesn't? She just pours the mix into the bread machine, punches in all the proper settings, leaves it so it can begin its wonderful three-hour process of becoming fresh baked bread. Of course, we get busy and we forget it's baking sometimes. But we don't have anything to do with it anyway. It's just silently getting done.
Now, there are some hints along the way that let us know what's happening. Eventually this wonderful aroma starts spreading through the house. But this particular time, by the time the bread was done, my wife was probably on her sixth or seventh next project. That's how it is at the Hutchcraft house. So when the beep, beep, beep sound began, she called from the back of the house, "Honey, what's that sound?" We wanted the bread. We started the process of having the bread, but we didn't see or hear anything for quite a while, until suddenly and deliciously it was ready.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Surprise in the Oven."
I have, of course, just described the way that God works. Yeah, our word for today from the Word of God talks about it in Ecclesiastes 3:11. "He has made everything beautiful in its time." Now, often that time is later than we want it to be. But in the perfect plan of God, it's right on time. Earlier the Lord reminds us, "There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven."
Now a baby is healthy if it comes at the time when it's ready. The baby might not be healthy if he or she comes prematurely. You know, God's deliveries are like that. And often our timing would mean a preemie; an answer or a provision from God that really isn't ready yet, isn't fully developed.
Maybe right now there's something you've been trusting God for, but the wait is getting pretty long: that financial breakthrough, that healing, a husband or a wife, a spiritual awakening in someone you love, a job, that answer to prayer. Well, let's go back to our bread making machine. We started the process of cooking up an answer. For quite a while we didn't see anything, hear anything, smell anything coming from our efforts to get bread. But silently, invisibly, it was getting done.
I have a feeling that might be what's going on in your life right now. You can't see or hear any activity from heaven at all, and it matters a lot to you. It seems like nothing's happening. I guess a gardener or a farmer could feel that way every year after they plant their seeds. For a while there's just no visible sign that anything's happening. But the processes of God most often happen out of our sight. And then like plants, what we hoped for starts to appear unless we get impatient and keep digging up the seed to see if God's really doing anything.
Remember, faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. That's Hebrews 11:1. Your faith is in a person, not in what you can see them doing. And that person: well that's your all-loving, all-powerful, always punctual God and I'll tell you He's cooking up something beautiful for you. So don't base your expectations or your emotions on what you can see or how much time seems to be left or if it seems like there's no time left. You know, God can do in a day what men couldn't do in 50 years.
God may give you some hints of what's in the oven, like the aroma that comes before the bread. But when it's totally ready, - like the beeps on the bread maker - He'll signal you in a way that you can't miss. And it'll be beautiful because it will be time.