So, my very dear brothers and sisters, don’t get thrown off course. Every gift God freely gives us is good and perfect, and comes down from the Heavenly Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.  James 1:16-17

It would be appropriate to say, every ‘promise’ God freely gives us is a gift, and as a gift from God, it is good and perfect, just like He is. Last time we began looking at what we can do while we’re waiting on God to fulfill His promises to us. How can we partner with Jesus in responding to His promises as we wait for their fulfillment?

First of all, (and we talked about this last time) we are rejoicing while we wait. We’re not rejoicing about our waiting. We’re rejoicing in Jesus who is with us as we wait because our capacity for His presence is expanded as we visualize the mystery and wonder of who He is.

Secondly, we are patient while we wait. Patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. We can be patient because we trust the One who has made the promises. Patience goes against our human nature—but it is so much a part of God’s nature—it’s the way Jesus is.

So as we wait, we work with God as He develops His own nature in us, so we become more like Him; including patience. It is not enough to just ACT patient; we must actually BE patient.

But often, when the waiting gets long, Holy Spirit’s fruit of patience deteriorates into passivity, which isn’t a good way to wait for God’s promises. We need to wait actively. Waiting on the Lord isn’t passive, it’s active. Passivity encourages us to “just get through it”. It is what leads so many Christians to accept something less than the promise of God just to arrive at a solution.

Passivity leads to pragmatism. If we’re waiting for the Lord to fulfill His promises in passivity instead of patience, we’ll often just settle for anything that works…anything that ends the waiting. (Remember Sarah giving Abraham her maid to produce God’s promised child? (Gen 21) Same idea.) We’ll settle for something lesser and miss the real promise that God will produce: “Christ in us, the hope of glory”, not just rescue us from our current dilemmas (Col 1:27).

But real patience is a great place to come before the Lord and access His incredibly extravagant and generous nature. Our hearts expand through rejoicing and our capacity grows to receive the fullness of the promises that He is delighted to give us.

Thirdly, we are Faithful. This works with Patience, as we just keep doing what we know to do, day in and day out. We stay faithful, keep growing, stop worrying, and obey God with the light that He has given us, even when we don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet.

Sometimes the nature of life causes us to have to act or make decisions even when we don’t have all the promises in place. Do we pretend as if they are there? [Put on the spiritual bravado and tell everyone we’re stepping out in faith.] Do we dig our feet in and refuse to move as the bulldozer of circumstances bears down on us? If our heart’s desire is to please and honor Jesus in all we do and in all our decisions, will making the best decision we can really be a “bad” one? One in which God can’t work within? No. God partners with us and He’s not unaware of our dilemmas.

Bottom line: Does God keep His promises? Yes. We can trust our God, He’s not fickle or undependable… A God who never changes. God faithful!
(Jam 1:17)