Bringing Isaac to Birth – Paul M. Williams

Genesis 21:1-8 Patience is one of those virtues that we all speak about, but none of us really like to experience it.  It's a bit like "saving", who likes to save when you can spend! Well similarly, who likes to have to endure the pain of waiting when you can have it now!!  The whole of Western consumerism is built on this model— if you want it now, you can have it now!! Solomon wrote, "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life" (Prov. 13:12).  Why does God then delay?  Does He not want His children happy?  Our Heavenly Father is of greater substance than that! He cares for more than our mere happiness, it is character that God's after!!  He wants to work in us the precious virtue of patience so that we might stand complete in Him by faith!