How God Fulfills His Word
What are the promises you have received from the Lord?
Often when the Lord speaks something that He is going to do in our lives we imagine the fulfillment of the word to be immediate. However, there is always a process that He takes us through to bring His word to fulfillment.
If we bypass the process, we miss out on so much the Lord desires to work in our lives. And the truth is, if He gave us everything He desires in the moment He first spoke it to us, He would overwhelm us in ways that wouldn’t be profitable.
Instead, God allows us to experience the journeys of surging and purging, blessings and challenges, growth and pruning, acceleration and waiting, all because He knows the necessary ingredients that will bring our hearts to the place of full surrender, obedience, and voluntary love.
We see this process happen in nature daily: there are four seasons (Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall) because each season is essential for the soil of the earth to yield the fruit it’s intended to yield. We know it cannot always be Spring and it cannot always be Fall, Winter and Summer are also essential. The same is true of our lives. Some seasons are full of new life and new growth, while other seasons are necessary pruning and stillness. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what the Scripture says about How God fulfills His Word.
Isaiah 55:8-9 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. 9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.
God describes the transcendent way He thinks and acts for a couple of reasons:
To get us to understand that our natural inclinations don’t immediately sync up with His plans, will, and purposes. He doesn’t think like we do...not even a little.
Also, our ways of going about things are not the ways that He goes about things. He does things so differently than us; as far as the heavens are above the earth. When we think something should go quickly, He thinks it should go slowly. When we think it should go slowly, God brings it to pass quickly. Every operation and action of His kingdom is like this.
These truths defeat our pride and require us to cease from our own thoughts and works and incline our ears to Him so that we can hear what the Lord is thinking, agree with Him, and follow what He is doing.
The passage from Isaiah is familiar to many believers, however, often we come short of getting the full context of what He’s saying. He’s not only saying that He thinks and acts differently than us. He gives us an example of how He goes about fulfilling His will.
Isaiah 55:10-11"For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, 11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
Most of the time we separate the two passages (vs. 8-9 together and vs. 10-11 together), instead contextually vs. 10-11 explains what God means in vs. 8-9.
God explains that His intended desire is to produce bread for someone to eat. The way He goes about this is by starting with rain or snow. Then there are multiple cycles and processes that have to be accomplished in order for the rain to end producing bread.
Rain forms in a cloud and then falls to the earth. The rain causes seeds to bud which spring up into wheat. Once the wheat is harvested there is a multifaceted process to get to edible grain. After that, another multifaceted process to go from grain to flour. And finally another multifaceted process to bake the flour into bread.
This is the exact same way the Lord goes about fulfilling His word: He starts by saying, “I’m going to put hot bread on your table for you to eat!” Our usual response is to run to the table and get our butter ready. God says, “Oh no don’t go to the table, go to the field. I’m going to send some rain…”
Each cycle of fulfilment is absolutely essential to get us to the table to eat the bread. We must walk through each process of formation in order for us to step into the next stage. Each stage is critical because if we skip any of the stages, we will never see the fullness of His promise.
Often we’re looking for the fulfillment of God’s promises when we come to the end of a cycle and we imagine God hasn’t done what He promised.
“He promised me bread and all I got was rain.”
No matter where you are on the journey to fulfillment, never let go of His promise. He is very clear, He’s going to bring it to pass, it’s just not going to look the way you thought it would look. This can be a source of great offense if we don’t understand how God goes about fulfilling His word.
For over 25 years, I have been fasting, praying, preaching, and believing for the Lord to send revival to the city of Atlanta. There have been many moments where I wanted to cast off hope. At the same time there have been moments of partial fulfillment, but not the fullness of what I’ve been believing. The temptation to quit or to stop short has been continual. Yet I know there is a fullness that God has promised and so I am beholden to stay in faith and patience until I see the fullness of His promise manifest.
What are the prophetic promises you are holding onto? What are the bible promises you are believing to come to pass? Have you cast off hope that God will do what He said He would do? If so I want to call you to believe again. He may have brought you through some critical cycles that are essential for the fulfillment of the promise, though the fullness is not yet. Could it be that while you’ve been looking for the finality God was bringing about the essential cycles to see the finality manifest. Don’t give up faith. You will receive in the due season if you only believe.