Will we ever learn to listen?

My dog helping me
read the book of Genesis

          Well, once again I've read the passage I'm blogging about the night before writing.  Thankfully the nerdy student in me remembered that taking notes while you're reading is quite the useful memory helper outer later on.  There seems to be a pattern emerging here and I'll probably be doing it this way from now on.  Reading/note taking after the kids go to bed during my only quiet time in the day and posting my blog the next day.   
          Genesis chapters 12 through 18 was my target reading for this session.  These passages focus mainly on Abram (Abraham), his wife Sarai (Sarah) and his nephew Lot.  This may be a little telling of me and my issues but the theme that seemed to stand up and shout while I read was that of trusting and waiting on God. Impatience when we really want something is super hard to work through.  It's very comforting to see that even Biblical patriarchs had this problem once upon a time.  
          Over and over again in these scriptures, God tells Abraham that he will be blessed with children.  Look how many times God mentions children/descendants before Abraham actually believes it:

• "Abraham I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you." 
• "To your offspring I will give this land."
• "I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted."
• "...a son coming from your own body will be your heir."
• "Look up at the heavens and count the stars - if indeed you can count them.  So shall your offspring be."
• "To your descendants I will give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates..."
• "I will confirm my covenant my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers."
• "You will be the father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you."  
• "I will bless [Sarah] and will surely give you a son by her."

I am pretty darn stubborn and it surprised even me to see how many times that God told him he would have descendants, oodles of them, and still Abraham wasn't fully trusting that it would happen.  After he had heard all of the above statements directly from the Lord Abraham still proceeded to "[fall] face down; he laughed and said to himself, 'Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old" Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?'"  God reassures him yet again after this and finally it seems to sink in that he and Sarah will have a child.  The two of them even went as far as trying to rush and force it instead of waiting on God's timing by having Abraham father a child with Hagar, Sarah's maidservant. 
          How often do we do the same thing that Abraham and Sarah did?  Probably more often than we even realize.  We ask and ask and ask for something and just don't seem to be getting it.  Finances are tight yet there is something we need and can't afford.  God has told us over and over again that he will not forsake us and that he will provide but we still worry, worry, worry over this thing anyway.  Just like Abraham we have a hard time believing when we aren't seeing the results right away.  Okay, granted Abraham was no spring chicken and both he and Sarah were well beyond normal child bearing years but he still was promised something by God and doubted that it would actually happen. 
          I pray that we all do a better job trusting and being patient, waiting on what God has already promised us. Until tomorrow!