God’s Promises and the Unexpected Path to Get There

“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David. . . ” Luke 1: 32.

One can’t help but notice the obvious disparity between the promise spoken here spoken by the angel Gabriel regarding Jesus and the actual circumstances surrounding His birth.

Verse 33 goes on to say “He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

To read the passage for context, click here.

With such a great and glorious promise, one would expect His birth to be equally grand. But the reality is that Mary gave birth inconveniently, as they were traveling. And there was no room for the Great One in the local hotel.

When There is Little Evidence of God’s Promises

So, He had to be born in a barn. And the Son of the Most High made His cradle in a barnyard feeding trough. The promise certainly doesn’t seem to line up with the circumstances surrounding His birth.

Couldn’t God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth- the One who caused Mary to conceive without a natural seed- have found room for the King of Kings in the inn?

Couldn’t God have found better accommodations for the Son of the Most High than a barn and a manger?

But this is often the way it is when God gives us a promise. He gave the Israelites the glorious promise of a land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3: 17).

And yet, the next thing they experienced were the burning sands of a dead, dry, barren desert. One that couldn’t even sustain them without daily miracles (Exodus 15: 22-18: 27).

Our Circumstances will Contradict God’s Promises

Not exactly what God promised- not even close. In fact, the wilderness experience was a contradiction of God’s promise.

And it’s where they eventually learned to walk by faith and not by sight. It’s where they ultimately strengthened their faith in the promise. And learned to patiently wait for it.

There are numerous examples of this in the Bible.

God promised descendants to Abraham through his son Isaac. And yet He told Abraham to sacrifice this son before he sired any children (Genesis 17: 1-21, 22: 1-18).

God promised David he would be king. And yet he had to live on the backside of nowhere fleeing for his life for years (1 Samuel 16: 4-13, 21).

God’s Promise Will Lead Us into a Wilderness Experience

The stark contrast between the glorious promise made about Jesus and the circumstances of His birth had to be a wilderness experience for Mary.

But this is where she had to decide if she was going to believe the message of the circumstances or the message of God’s promise.

She had to choose to believe that God had plans for this child for welfare and not calamity. To give Him a future and a hope. The circumstances screamed “calamity”. But God’s promise spoke of welfare (Jeremiah 29: 11).

And she had to choose which one she was going to believe. She had to decide if she was going to walk by faith or by sight.

In Keeping with God’s Ways

The circumstances of Jesus’ birth were not just an unfortunate happenstance. Rather, they were in keeping with God’s ways. To teach those involved (and us) to walk by faith.

Whenever God gives us a promise, our faith in that promise must be perfected before we see the fulfillment of it.

And faith is perfected by trials- contradictory circumstances- that test it. When we choose to believe in spite of how things look, our faith gains endurance, which ultimately completes it.

As we continue to believe God’s promise, in spite of all manner of seemingly contradictory evidence, our faith is progressively strengthened. To the point where nothing can cause us to lose faith. That’s when our faith is perfected.

And we will see the fulfillment of the promise.

To read another post related to God’s Promises and the Unexpected Path to Get There, see How to Be Righteous in One Difficult Step.