God gave me a big promise 18 years ago and I chose to believe it. Not a day goes by when I don’t think about it. Many of those days I’m praying for it to come to be, positioning myself to receive it, or complaining about how it hasn’t happened yet.

That’s over 6,500 days and nights living with the same unfulfilled longing. A longing that God put in my heart because it matches me perfectly. My faith is in Jesus; my experience is a string of false starts, failures and disappointments. So hard to keep hoping.

But this is the journey to becoming God’s friend. God’s friends wait. For promises, through suffering, or to start their ministry….

1. Abraham: 25 years (called at 75, Isaac born at 100)

• “Abraham your friend” (2 Chronicles 20:7).
• “Abraham my friend.” (Isaiah 41:8).
• “He was called God’s friend.” (James 2:23).

2. Moses: 40 years in exile in Midian (Acts 7:30) then 40 years leading Israel in the wilderness (Numbers 14:33-34)

• “The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.” (Exodus 33:11).

3. David: 15 years from anointing to becoming king of Judah (2 Samuel 2:4), then 7 more years before ruling all Israel (2 Samuel 5:4-5)

• “A man after my own heart.” (1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22).

4. Noah: 100+ years (from the command to build the ark until the flood came)

• “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.” (Genesis 6:9).

5. Job: Months or years of suffering

• “God’s intimate friendship blessed my house” (Job 29:4)

6. John the Baptist: Lived in the wilderness until about age 30 before beginning his ministry

• “The friend who attends the bridegroom” (John 3:29).

Hang In There

We can’t escape the hope from Jesus: it has us “imprisoned”: Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you. – Zech 9:12

We’re firmly holding on to a rope, but we can’t see what it’s attached to behind the curtain: We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain – Heb 6:19

Abraham’s response to his big promise is our model, facing the brutal facts but not giving up: Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us… – Romans 4:18-24

At some point, Jesus will say to us too: “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends” – John 15:15