Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - When Your Dreams Are Scary as Crap | Torah | Genesis 16

Episode Date: February 8, 2022

Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Are you hopes and dreams so big and scary that you're tempted to take a shortcut? Do you tend to embrace tension or push it away? In today's episode, Tanya uses Genesis 16 to shares the importance of pressing into tension in life instead of taking shortcuts. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Passages: Genesis 16 Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. We're exploring stories from the first books of the Bible. Right now, we're in Genesis. Hey, listeners, I'm excited to tell you about a new way to connect with 10-minute Bible talks in the new year. When you sign up for our brand-new 10-minute Bible Talks email newsletter, you're going to get a blessedly short email once a week.

and it's going to have guides on spiritual disciplines, inspiring challenges for you to grow. It's going to give you more background on the passages we cover, and there'll even be quick studies of Hebrew and Greek words. It will be the one email that asks nothing from you but gives you something instead. Each week will be a little different, and you're going to love the variety. So stop what you're doing, click the link in the show notes, and join us in your inbox. Now, let's hop into today's episode. I wish you could see the text stringer.

among my friends, but a 37-year-old mom, F-2, just became the fastest American woman to run a marathon. On January 16th, 2022, Kiera Damado finished the Houston Marathon in two hours, 19 minutes, and 19 seconds. About the time it takes some of us who call ourselves runners to complete half that distance. My friends and I are drawn to her story because of her age. She's 37 and her kids and her resilience. Here's what she said on Instagram after the race. Kara said, I could list the roller coaster of emotions for days, but the thought I keep coming back to is how proud I am that I found the courage to give running a shot again, and attempt to tackle all this unfinished business. Goals, similar to marathons, can be scary as crap.

Kiera DiMato knows a thing or two about unfinished business. She set her long distance running career aside when she graduated from college and she became a real estate agent. And then she had kids. and she actually picked up running again in her 30s as a way to relieve some of that stress and tension of working and raising a family. She ran her first marathon in three hours and 17 minutes, her second in two hours, 44 minutes, and in less than two years, broke two hours and 20 minutes. Natural talent aside, we all feel like we've got a little bit of Kira Damado in us.

Now, Rosie Ruiz had a different way of managing her goals. On April 21st, 1980, she became the second first, fastest woman in the world to run a marathon. For a few minutes, anyway. She crossed the finish line of the Boston Marathon in two hours and 31 minutes, and she was interviewed and photographed and lived in the spotlight until it became clear that she had cheated. Maybe it was because she felt pressure, being a female competitor.

It was, after all, only the ninth year Boston had allowed women in the race at that time, 1980. Maybe she had some internal security and identity issues. Maybe she felt unprepared. Whatever the cause, Rosie figured out a way to cut out a part of the marathon and ride the subway from point to point instead of actually running the whole thing. And she probably meant to join a pack of female runners and finish in some sort of good but not noticeable time. But she miscalculated. And she emerged from the subway and came back to the street too early, just behind the fastest female, drawing all sorts of attention to herself and her supposed talent.

In an attempt to resolve some sort of internal tension, Rosie, grossly overshot. If you Google her name today, she's called the infamous marathon cheater. Shortcuts are super tempting. They alleviate the tension we hold when our goals and our dreams are scary. When we're not sure if they're going to come true or not. Shortcuts promise to solve something we don't like, the unknown. We don't like the feeling of not having something we want.

We don't like the feeling of not knowing when we're going to get it. And here's where we get into our passage for today. By now you probably know about the big promise God gave Abram. In Genesis 12, God called him out of his home and his land and said to him, I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you, I will curse. And Abram believed God and Abram followed God.

I think Abram was a dreamer and God used that. But Abram also faced some trials and some calls. conflicts and he had some doubts. And what met him in his daily experiences didn't always align with this big promise. And so Abram sometimes got caught up in the smaller story. In Genesis 15, God spoke to Abram again. When Abram was doubting God on how and when he would give the descendants as promised, God took him outside and said, look up at the sky and count the stars. If indeed you can count them, so shall your offspring be. But see, Abram wanted God to solve the tension of waiting and wondering and tell him his specific methods.

But God wanted Abram to focus on the magnificence of God. Abram wanted God to give him more faith in his circumstances, and God was calling him to more faith in him. There we have the backdrop for Abram's next conversation with his wife, Surai, in Chapter 16. God told Abram he would be the father of generations, but Abraham and Sorai didn't even have one child. And they were old. Genesis 16 1 through 4. Now Sarai Abram's wife had born him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar.

So she said to Abram, The Lord has kept me from having children. Go sleep with my slave. Perhaps I can build a family through her. Abram agreed to what Sorai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sorai, his wife, took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar and she conceived. God was going to give Abram the child he promised, but Abram couldn't handle the tension.

It felt like age and time had sidelined the dream. So when Sorai came to him with an opportunity, it seemed like a good way to help God out a little. Even though it meant taking advantage of someone else and compromising a marriage, those must seem small or minimal sacrifices for gaining what they really wanted. And what God had promised, a child. Have you already been thinking about ways your life or your desires can intersect the Genesis 16? Are your hopes and dreams so big or so scary that it feels like it would be safer or easier to take a shortcut instead of working really hard or waiting?

Hebrews 11 is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible because it talks about all these people like Noah and Abraham and Rehab and David, real life people, who faced and even failed in times of tension, but still get biblical shoutouts for persevering in faith. Hebrews 11-1 begins the chapter. Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Abraham believed God would make him into a great nation. but Abram didn't trust his timing. We can be really good at believing, or at least saying we believe God for the big things, our rescue from death, our resurrected bodies, his kingdom to come to earth, but we forget how to believe God for the things we have more ability to control. Most good things don't have shortcuts,

because waiting is part of God's design. If you're going to run a marathon, you might need to work with a trainer who would help you build, the cardiovascular and leg strength to run for three or four hours, or two, if you're Kira. If we're going to be people who wait on God's promises for eternal fulfillment and joy and peace and salvation, he is going to help us work out our waiting muscles and build our perseverance. So maybe by making us wait, God isn't actually withholding something, but giving us something bigger. why then aren't we willing to hold on to the tension a little longer?

And just by the way, if we're moms, why aren't we willing to let our children hold on to the tension a little bit longer? We are people at this point who have gone through at least partly a pandemic. We are people who are waiting for children to be born, for bosses to notice us, for coaches to put us in the game, for colleges to accept our applications, for friendships to be part of our daily life? What if tension isn't optional but necessary? What if it is God's design to make us dig a little deeper

to discover what we really want, who we really are, and what we're made for? What if tension is the way we learn to love others like Jesus does? What if living in the waiting is the way we live in the world, but not of the world, as we reflect his glory and his light, but relate to real struggles and hardships and see the needs of others. If you have any relationships or responsibilities or a beating heart, you have tension somewhere. You are waiting for something or someone.

Me too. I'm waiting on a couple of really tangible things right now. A couple of things I've been praying about for a long time and a bunch of things I probably don't really even know or can't articulate. But here's what I do know. God is working in and through my waiting. He will not abandon or forsake me. He will not take away my hope and my joy. And anything I do to solve my tension that hurts others and goes against his word is just a shortcut. It's not worth it. But to be honest, I still very much feel the tension.

I have to make a choice to embrace the tension with expectancy, to not try to scheme or manipulate it to solve it, to take it for what it is, to lean into it, and to grow from it. At the end of the day, I know God loves me, is for me, and has all things for me. And he has the same for you. No shortcuts or cheating necessary. Lord, help us to remember that you are for us in the big things and the small details. Help us to relinquish our desire to scheme, manipulate, and control people and situation to get the outcomes we want. Give us instead content hearts that find more comfort in waiting for you than depending on

ourselves. We know you are for us. So help us to remember that in the moment. Amen. Thanks for listening. If you want to go deeper, sign up for the TMBT newsletter. You'll get a short email once a week and it will challenge you to grow, give you interesting backgrounds on today's passage, plus a whole lot more.

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