Wait For It!
January 8 (Genesis 14-15)
When we read through the Bible, how easy it is to wing our way through the stories and, boom!, it’s on to the next one. You don’t realize exactly what you have read until later Bible authors hit the “pause” button and fill us in on just how important those early stories really were. That’s especially true in the case of Abraham.
We read of his obscure encounter with a priest named Melchizedek, but you don’t see the significance of that encounter until you get to the book of Hebrews. We see the birth of Isaac, the child of promise, but what that means to Christians struggling with legalism isn’t shared until the book of Galatians. We read a blurb about Abraham believing, and his faith being “reckoned to him as righteousness.” But we have to wait until the New Testament to see how that verse is one of the central truths of understanding our very salvation.
There is a depth to scripture that makes you stop and think, but many of the answers are not found until later in the journey. There is a golden thread weaving its way through the whole narrative, with the thread tying a big knot in the person of Jesus, the Messiah, and then continuing its journey to the lives of the early church and on to us.
There is a special symbolism in the Bible called “typology,” which simply means that in some stories or characters, we see shadowy model that in a figurative way mimics something that will exist in reality later on. Adam was a type of Christ. Melchizedek was a type of priesthood that would reflect Jesus’ later priesthood. When we get to those scriptures, I’ll probably have a devotional on the real deal.
But not now. For that we have to wait. And we don’t like to wait. People want what they want now. Patience is harder to come by in our fast-paced world when you can get what you want with the click of a button. So how does this have anything to do with real life today?
Just ask a parent who is dealing with children who are struggling with the changes of puberty. Wise parents will be honest and remind them that even they didn’t like all the things that happened to their bodies when they were that age. So they aren’t alone, but if they wait, at the end of the journey there will be something wonderful that they can’t understand right now.
Spiritually, you may be going through a time or a season where you struggle seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. You aren’t alone. Look at Abraham. Keep the faith. Glory awaits!
“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope” Psalm 130:5
