Carrying His Promise

The Lord said to Abram:

“Leave your country, your family, and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you. I will bless you and make your descendants into a great nation. You will become famous and be a blessing to others.  I will bless those who bless you, but I will put a curse on anyone who puts a curse on you. Everyone on earth will be blessed because of you.”

Abram was 75 years old when the Lord told him to leave the city of Haran.

- Genesis 12

Have you ever received a promise from God? On the surface, the idea seems pretty glamorous - hearing God’s voice, spoken to by the Almighty, being given his blessing, even foretelling how he’ll change the course of history. That’s a big deal!

Most Christians would be floored just hearing, “You’re doing good - keep at it,” from God, and many go through decades of their lives just wondering at that. How much more to hear that he’s going to take an active role in shaping your future.

So while you might guess that a promise from God is a “mountain top” moment, the truth is that carrying a promise is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do.

The Glorious Launch of Amplify

When Amplify first launched, it wasn’t an overnight success.

Despite years of work to plan and build the platform, alongside the best church partnership we could imagine (Foothills Alliance in Calgary), and serving online ads, door-to-door flyers, posters in surrounding communities, and a heap of prayer, we didn’t see a single community member respond.

Back when we launched, the first thing we offered was free help - just church folks offering to help their neighbours - and no one seemed interested. For a full month we paid for online ads, pounded the pavement, mobilized volunteers, tried new ideas, and none of it worked.

After that first month, I felt God (in prayer) tell me that we no longer needed to push or to pivot our plans to reach community members. Five days later, my business partner (whom I hadn’t told) came to me and said he felt God was telling him to stop (and even delete) the online ads.

So that’s what we did.

We stopped the flyers, we stopped the ads, and we let Foothills Alliance know as well. Surprisingly, they were very supportive and willing to see what God had in store. Again, I couldn’t have asked for a better church to launch with.

A Phone Call

Two days after that (I didn’t have to wait long), I received a promise that I never expected.

I was walking through a nearby neighbourhood, praying through various things, and heard God tell me that:

The person God is preparing will phone Matt or I about Amplify.
They’ll have an idea they want to suggest.
It will be someone local to our area.
We need to hear them and their suggestion carefully.
We should do their suggestion, though it doesn’t necessarily need to be exactly the way they pitch it - there’s room for conversation and adjusting it.
The call will come soon.
This is the Pivot you’ve been waiting for.

We need to prepare ourselves for this - be ready.
When we do this, our narrow vision/scope will open up. (see photo)

There were several other details revealed as I asked God to clarify different aspects. In fact, all of the above was a conversation - me asking, God answering. The wording above also isn’t perfect; many of the words were a combination of a couple words, more of a meaning than just the words alone.

Suffice to say, it was a first for me. I’ve heard God answer during prayer over the previous years, but usually just a few words, and often only answering direct questions. This time it was a full “download,”  a complete picture fully directed by God.

Anticipation

So the first thing I did was phone Matt, my business partner. He took it really well.

Both he, and (later) Foothills, were willing to wait for this phone call, this promise, to come through.

After all, a promise is pretty glamorous, right?

After a week, I felt God call me to start reaching out to more churches, telling them that a significant need is coming, and we’ll need their help. I reached out to six different churches, met for coffee, and told them that this need was just around the corner…

And we waited. We waited a couple more weeks - that was just fine. Then we waited a couple more after that - and that was okay too, I guess. After all, we’re pretty patient people, we have a strong, sturdy faith and all that. And then we kept waiting.

And we waited some more.

After the first month, I received another promise - that this pivot would become the centerpiece of Amplify Community and from it everything would grow. Matt received the verse, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

And we waited some more.

Carrying His Promise

I started praying more about it too. Asking that the call would come soon, asking if I heard God correctly…

Some days I’d start praying, and immediately hear, “THE PHONE CALL’S NOT COMING.” Other days, when deep in prayer, I would ask again and hear, “yes, it’s coming.” Matt, at one point, felt he heard that it would come within the next week. Then a week would go by, then two weeks, and still no phone call.

After a couple of months (and three months since launch), I met with Foothills. They wanted to discuss what the plan was if the phone call didn’t come. Do we have a plan B? I reassured them. We had a great plan B … but let’s just wait a little longer … at least to the new year (a few weeks away).

It was hard. It was so incredibly hard. Meeting with new churches, telling them, “No one’s interested now, but God told me I’ll get a phone call. We’re going to need your help”. Chatting with Foothills, or not chatting with them - both of which with the same message - no call yet. Questioning what I heard, questioning if that was really God or perhaps the voice of the Liars, questioning if the phone call was still coming or if plans had changed. Questioning if God makes mistakes, or questioning (a tiny bit) if I had it all wrong - is all this just in my head?

Over and over, I had to go back to moments in my own life, in my testimony, where God had undeniably shown up for me. Reminding myself of his story in my life. Standing on those places where I knew God was undeniable, then choosing to wait a little longer.

Hope

Over two months after receiving the promise (on December 30th), I got a text from Matt:

He was pretty sure it was the phone call we had been waiting for, but he wanted to check some things with me.

As we chatted over the phone, I found out Matt had an old friend in town (one that had grown up near Calgary, but lived elsewhere now), and Matt had gotten a call from that friend to get together before the end of the holidays. When they did so Matt had mentioned Amplify, and this friend (currently pursuing a Master’s in Counselling) had all of these ideas about (a) why Amplify hadn’t seen interest, and (b) how the platform needed to change. Matt toured me through the stories from his friend’s experience, and unfolded the ways Amplify Community could better reach neighbours and build interest:

• What if churchgoers asked for help instead of only offering help?

• What if the first step in community building was to invite neighbours to be the hero, and churchgoers to be the recipient?

• What if Amplify Community became a group of people who could both ask and receive help from each other? A place where everyone could lean on each other?

Admittedly, I liked all the ideas, but I still wasn’t sure if that was the call we had been waiting for. I had just pictured it so differently, thinking it would be a call from a complete stranger: “Hi, is this Amplify? I have something I need your help with, but I don’t know if you’d be willing to do this… we have 4000 people who need beds” (or something like that). I wasn’t expecting it to be a call from an old friend looking to get together over the holidays…

I was pretty hesitant to “name it and claim it,” or shout from the rooftops that we had the call we had been waiting for. I felt like a group of Israelites who had just marched around Jericho, but after blowing the trumpets, looked around and asked, “Did the walls fall? I don’t know? Maybe we should check the walls on the other side of town?”

I was also so discouraged from the past two months of prayer (getting different answers, feeling the roller coaster of emotions) that I wasn’t feeling like I could just ask God about it. I didn’t know if the first thing I’d hear would be him. So Matt and I booked a meeting to discuss it with the Foothills team… and what did they tell me?

“Maybe you should ask God about it.” 

Hahahaha! Yes. Maybe I should.

When I finally did pluck up the courage to pray into it, there was no doubt. His answers were definitive and exactly what I needed to hear. Honestly, I didn’t push to hear a specific answer. I was open to whatever direction he told me, but it sure felt good when the answer came back with a resounding, “yes.”

Abraham

I’ve heard a lot of preachers knock Abraham (Abram) and his wife Sarah for the slip-ups they had along the way. Did you know the first country God led Abraham into was hit by a devastating famine? He moved from one place to the next, each time fearing the warrior kings of each land as they sized up his possessions and his wife.

I struggled through the burden of a promise for barely over 2 months - Abraham carried his promise for 25 years  and he maintained his faith in God through all of it. He journeyed from the age of 75 to the age of 100 with the promise that God would give him his first child with his wife Sarah, and he never turned away from God. He never accused God of failing to fulfill his promise. Never said, “perhaps there is no God.”

I think it’s much easier to have faith when you expect little from God. It’s much easier when nothing is at stake and we can keep reinterpreting each promise the moment we feel it’s at risk.

But sometimes God gives us promises which we can’t reinterpret or set aside.

So what do you do then?

Faith

I think that’s the crux of Abraham’s story. What do you do when God has asked you to wait? For many, it’s waiting on understanding. I have someone close to me who fell away from the faith because he found contradictions in the Bible that he just couldn’t reconcile.

Sometimes we’re asked to have faith despite not having any of the answers yet.

I know people who are waiting on a cure. I know others who have died waiting, never receiving a cure. I have close friends who lost their child despite endless prayers and every doctor, surgeon, and expert imaginable.

Sometimes we’re asked to have faith despite everything around us crumbling apart.

In church, we talk a lot about faith. But I think we often get it wrong, or at least miss the important part.

Faith (I think) is more about sticking with God through thick and thin than it is about mustering more willpower and “believing harder.” God wants to build in us the fortitude to receive his promises and not fall away because of the pressure.

God wants a relationship which can withstand:

• Silence

• Loss

• Doubt

• Grief

• And even promises…

God wants us through thick and thin. He’s hoping to teach us that he’ll stay by our side, and why we should stay by his. Faith is loyalty. Faith is trust. Faith is saying, “I’m not leaving, even though right now it’s really, really tough.”

Learning

I know I still have a lot to learn. And yes, my own faith has seen tougher things than a two-month wait (right now I have another promise that’s over six years waiting). But I think there are rhythms which God is continually teaching us:

1. Will you give up your way and follow mine?
   - Then he shows himself in our lives.

2. Will you continue to follow even if it gets tough?
   - Then he brings us through it.

3. What if you could finally have an easier life? Would you still give that up?
   - Then he takes us on an even bigger adventure…

The wonderful thing is that he never stops teaching us and inviting us. People can get derailed for years and years, but God is still inviting them to follow his path and to become Followers once again. In truth, each invitation is also a promise: if you follow, he will guide; if you follow, he will take care of you; and if you continue to follow, over and over, he will accomplish amazing things through you - more than you ever thought possible.

Building Our Faith

Lastly, I wanted to talk about actively building faith. If we follow God, our faith will be tested, but there are also things we can do to reinforce it and support it.

Testimony

For me, this is one of the most significant pieces. When God shows himself in our lives, we need to write it down. We need to preserve it and protect it. When we doubt, it’s what we can point back to and say, “but this was undeniable.” When we chat with others who are seeking, or doubting, or suffering, we can point to it and say, “but God is real, and he will redeem this.” It is our story of God in our lives, and us in his. This has sustained me many, many times.

Other Followers

Ecclesiastes talks about, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labour - if either of them falls down, one can help the other up.” There have been a lot of times that I’ve needed this, and most of the time when I’ve found I’m weak, my business partner, or my wife, or other Followers have lifted me back up. I think this is a very valuable thing - finding those people in your life who can encourage you when you are struggling.

Prayer

This side definitely has more nuance to it, because I find it takes on a lot of different forms. Having said that, I’ve found them all helpful at different times:

1. Direction - Praying for God’s direction and asking him what to do. I’ve found he’s often most vocal when I’m needing him most.

2. Peace - In the midst of turmoil, chaos, stress, and doubt, I’ve found I can ask God for peace. Peace over the following days, or even weeks. Sometimes we just need rest from the battle.

3. Lamenting - Some days, we just need to dump our problems and emotions and exhaustion at God’s feet. Our sorrow he can soothe, our tears he can dry, our loss he can share, and grieve with us. Sometimes I find he gently corrects me (usually if I’m just complaining), but most of the time he just takes it on so I don’t have to carry it alone.

The one thing I’ve found over and over is that God answers - sometimes within minutes, sometimes hours, sometimes over the next few days, but he’s always been there when I needed him most.

Sticking it Out

I think what Abraham was so good at, and what we need to aspire to, is simply to continue saying yes to God’s plan. Saying yes even when the years get hard and there is famine in the land; saying yes even when life gets easier and we can just settle into a simple, happy life.

Over the last few months the one time I actually felt God was frustrated with me is when it got hard and I ceased praying - ceased asking him for help and for guidance. God wants to walk with us during those hard times, and wants to guide us through them. How frustrating it must be when we won’t let him do that - when he can help us, but we refuse to ask.

Likewise he wants to celebrate with us through the good times, and even show us new things along the way. How frustrating must it feel when we won’t celebrate with him, or let him bless us further? He desires to make our hard times easier and bring fruit from them. He desires to make our good times richer, and build depth within our joy. He desires to invite us to adventure, and walk the journey with us. Our challenge is to have the faith to stick with him throughout it all.

Abraham is celebrated because he was the one who stuck with God through all of it, and a nation was born because of that.