This is a question that can really make us wonder at times. God oftentimes says in a prophecy things like, “Soon this will happen,” or “Very soon you will come into the ultimate plans that I have in store for you.” The person who hears words like this may well think that “soon” will mean next week, or at the latest, towards the end of that year. However, with God, His time table is very different from ours. Soon to Him, can be a very relative term.

How long did Joseph have to wait until the promises given to him had come to pass? What about the children of Israel who were told that they would come into their promised land? Did it happen within the year they were told this? No, they waited and waited, eating manna in the wilderness and grumbling over many things. We have only to read about many of the patriarchs and prophets of old, to know that the word “soon” wasn’t necessarily “soon” to them. And yet they waited and waited, and ultimately the promise was fulfilled. The same is true for us today as we wait upon those promises which we know of that God has said to us.

When we have heard God whisper to us about these things we need to remember these things. But as we ponder the promises spoken to us through a genuine prophetic word or from something He said to us, we can be assured that it will come to pass. Remember that those who wait upon the Lord “will” renew their strength. They will mount up upon the wings of eagles. They will run and not be weary.

“But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” Isaiah 40:31.

His promises are true. They can be trusted, and we can lean upon them as we dwell upon His word being strengthened everyday. Each day will then bring us further and further down the road of the fulfillment of those things that have been promised to us. We will then see sign posts along the way that will reveal to us that indeed, some of those promises are being fulfilled even now. It’s a process. And with the process that unfolds in our individual journeys with the Lord, we will then go from promises fulfilled to newer things that He would have in store for us.

It’s important to remember that with the waiting comes a growing of stature in the Lord. The waiting has its purposes. And of course the “waiting” can cause one to either continue in faith believing in those promises, or to give up and become discouraged. It’s very much like the trials of life in that one can grow through them and gain character strength, or they can become bitter. That’s why it is so important to continue our relationship with Him, believing and hoping in Him, that step-by-step, those promises are being fulfilled.

We then walk out our own individual prophetic promises, and as we stay alert and sensitive to His Holy Spirit, then we can be assured that He is leading us and fulfilling those things “in us” and before us through the journey.

Amen,
– Stephen Hanson

Stephen Hanson of In His Truth Ministries came to the Lord is a special way in 1975 and has been prophesying regularly since. In these end-time birthing pangs we are to be reminded that judgment must first begin with the household of God. Will we be prepared and ready?