This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. -1 John 5:14-15

    He says we already have what we have asked for. Paul even says of our God in Romans 4:17b "-the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were." This is who our God is. He brings life where there is death. He sees things as they will be and calls that forth.

    We see it in the life of Abraham. God promised to make Abram the Father of many nations 25 years before the birth of Isaac. He even changes Abram's name to Abraham (which means the Father of many nations) before he had ever felt his son move within his wife's womb or held his baby in his arms. The Lord began to call things that were not as though they were.

    Those 25 years capture that wilderness place between the Already and the Not Yet. If the Lord has promised it- it is Already. It is sure. The promise will brought to completion. And yet often we're still living in the Not Yet because our eyes have yet to behold the fulfillment of the promise. 

    It is this wilderness place that leads us to deeper trust and dependence. It's learning to grasp the Promise and to allow your heart to rest in the assurance that the Lord will do what He has said, to find peace in the truth that His heart toward you is love. To learn how to cling tenaciously to the words of your Father when yet another year passes and the child of the promise hasn't arrived. To learn to hold fast to the truth of the promise when your circumstances make it seem more and more unlikely to see its fulfillment.

   Our God is a God of the impossible. He is the God who brings dead things to life and calls things that are not as though they were.

   So, when you find yourself in that desert place between the Already and the Not Yet, hold fast in trust and persevere with tenacious faith until fulfillment begins to dawn on the horizon.