Keep On Keeping On!

      ‘Sometimes I wonder if God still knows I exist. I have done everything as right as I can possibly can as a child of God, yet these delays dog my steps. From my teenage years up to this moment, it’s always one form of delay or the other. I can’t remember when last I caught a break. People tell me ‘keep on keeping on’! I do, but for how long? Ma, I have finally come to the conclusion that God has forgotten me”. These were the painful words a young friend said to me the other day. Several times when faced with life challenges as a child of God, there is always the tendency to think something may be wrong with our walk with the Lord or just as my young friend said, ‘God has forgotten me’! 

       Let’s take a look at a couple in the Scriptures that had a similar fate. Zechariah, a priest of God and his wife whom the Bible said concerning them: “Both were righteous in God’s sight, living without blame according to all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. But they had no children because Elizabeth could not conceive, and both of them were well along in years” (Luke 1:6-7). Despite their condition of not having a child, they did not stop loving or serving Him. Like the three Hebrew friends, they may have come to the conclusion: “But even if He does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up” (Daniel 3:18). Throughout Scriptures we find that most delays are actually processes which the Lord uses to prepare His people. Israel had to wait an additional thirty years to be delivered from Egypt because the Lord needed to prepare Moses. Abraham and Sarah waited an additional thirteen years for Isaac to be born. Abraham’s ‘delay’ was a process to expose his heart. You see how quick he jumped into bed with Hagar? 

       The Lord said: “Remember that the Lord your God led you on the entire journey these 40 years in the wilderness, so that he might humble you and test you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands. He humbled you by letting you go hungry; then He gave you manna to eat, which you and your fathers had not known, so that you might learn that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:2-3). In the ‘process’ as you await your blessing, God wants to humble you, test you so you can learn! Beloved, since the ‘delay’, what have you learnt? What are you learning? If you refuse to learn but to continue to gripe and whine like the children of Israel, you will make the journey longer and difficult. It was clear that Elizabeth learned, the husband didn’t! God had to shut him up because the set time had come. 

       The reality is that for every wilderness experience we go through, our ability to learn quickly determines how long we would stay in it. The wilderness experience is a test and not your destiny. For instance you desire to marry, what have you learnt throughout your years of waiting? Some are just disasters waiting to happen, because in all their years of singlehood, they are yet to learn the most important lesson: “…that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:3b). 

       Friend, He hasn’t forgotten you and He will not abandon His purpose for your life. Don’t give up! What you are going through is simply a path and NOT your destination! This is why it is dangerous to judge a man by what he is going through. His tomorrow might just be different! I want to encourage you, this ‘delay’ you are going through is a ‘process’, and every year that you think you had ‘lost’, the Lord will give back to you. Moses, Abraham, Hannah and many more got the lost years back: “I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust ate, the young locust, the destroying locust – My great army that I sent against you” (Joel 2:25). Friend, don’t falter in your trust in the Lord. Has He spoken concerning you? He will surely do it! You just keep on keeping on! God bless you.