Eating a Plateful of Crow

“Those who move ahead of God’s perfect plan often birth ‘Ishmaels.’" – Os Hillman

Have you ever run ahead of God? If so, you are in very good company. Abram did (see Genesis 16) and it caused dissension between his wife Sarai and him… and between Sarai and Hagar, her maidservent… and eventually between the descendants of Isaac (the Jews) and Ishmael (the Arabs).

So did Moses when he struck the rock twice instead of speaking to it once. The painful result was that he was denied the opportunity to enter the Promised Land, although God did allow him to see it from afar before he died. Likewise, Joshua ran ahead of God when he launched an ill-conceived and undermanned attack on Ai and when he signed a peace treaty under false pretenses with the Gibeonites. The former led to a humiliating military disaster in which 36 people died and the latter to an uneasy alliance between the two peoples.

David, the so-called “man after God’s own heart?” Yes, him too. After all, he had several wives already, but “ran ahead” of God by sleeping with Bathsheba, murdering her husband, and covering up his sin for a full year until he was confronted by Nathan the prophet. The consequences were many: the death of the child conceived, and a promise that “the sword shall never depart” from King David’s house… including an insurrection led by his own son, Absalom. Ammon, another of David’s sons, followed in his father’s footsteps by raping his half-sister Tamar instead of asking for her hand in marriage, a request surely to be granted. His impatience and impertinence cost him his life… at the hands of Absalom and his men.

Adam ran ahead of God by eating the forbidden fruit along with Eve and then trying to hide his sin with fig leaves. King Saul did the same when he consulted a medium instead of God Himself. The list goes on and on, and includes such mighty men of faith as Peter, who tried to talk Jesus out of going to the cross and later cut off the ear of the High Priest’s servant.

I, too, am on that list in more than one place. For instance, in 1987, I was so enthused by the success of our initial prison ministry softball season that I contacted a bunch of prisons in Florida to schedule games that winter. Oops… I forgot to recruit enough players first and so, when numerous prisons extended invitations, I had to “eat crow” and turn them down. Fortunately, God opened those same doors – and many more – five years later after I had learned a few lessons in patience.

The moral of the story? It is better to walk beside Jesus or to follow closely on His heels than to run ahead.

“Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him…” Psalm 37:7a (NKJV)

- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President