Hard Promises

This is one of those mornings I find myself listening to a particular song on endless repeat as if I'm gonna find some secret new meaning on listen number thirty. The song happens to be a little-known Tom Petty-Stevie Nicks duet from 1981 called Insider. It seems what captivates me most about this tune today is a line in the chorus where Tom and Stevie sing "I've had to live with some hard promises".
It's not often we think of promises as hard but we most certainly live in a world where promises can be very very hard (Ever had to promise not to talk to somebody you care about?). I want to suggest to you that some of the hardest promises with which we have to live this side of heaven are God's promises.
In a story most of us know well God came to a 75-yr-old man named Abram and told him not only would his long-barren, equally-elderly wife bear a child, but that God would "make of him a great nation". Abram took God at His word, uprooted his family from the only home they'd ever known, and followed God east. 25 years and hundreds of miles later Sarai had yet to bear Abram a son. It was only in the 100th year of his life that Abram and Sarai conceived Issac, the child of God's promise.
The reality of this story is hard to ignore. God made a promise to Abram and He kept that promise, but how differently must Abram have imagined his future when God told him he would have a son? How many nights in that quarter century of sojourning must Abram have rended his garments and begged God to make Sarai pregnant?
One of the hardest truths for "Christian" people is that we have no say in the way God brings about that which He promises (look at how God's own chosen nation reacted to the means by which God brought about salvation and atonement in the person of Christ). Further, our sin renders us blind to reality in such a way that we misinterpret God's promises and expect temporal, earthly goods and blessings as opposed to blessings in heaven.
What does that mean for you and me? Let me (as closely as I can remember) quote Dr. Richard Pratt: "God doesn't owe you good health; and He's not cheating you if you're health is not good. God doesn't owe you a good marriage and He's not cheating you if you don't get one. God doesn't owe you well-behaved Christian children and He's not cheating you if you don't have them"
We are promised eternity and felicity as children of God but that felicity is not happening right now; it is to come. Here, we are faced with hard promises, trials and troubles. May God give us grace to endure and believe