Malachi 4:2-3 But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts.

She sat hi-lighting passages from Malachi. She was so engrossed in her effort the words of the table passed by her ears without stopping. She had bent her will to know what the Lord had to say in these passages.

I said to her, “Think of Malachi as being the last chapter in the first book of a two books. The last chapter is meant to inspire you to read the next book.”

Here in the last chapter of Malachi is a promise sent of God by Malachi. There is in the previous chapters a list of grievances for all the wrong done by Israel. Then God promises to send one who will make things right again. In chapter 3 He says He will send a messenger before His arrival. In Malachi 4:5 He identifies that messenger as Elijah, the most revered prophet in all of the Old Testament.

Then the books of the prophets are shut for four hundred and ninety years. Seventy festivals of weeks that are held every seven years pass before the first chapter of the next chapter is written in the hearts and minds of those who waited on that promise. I cannot imagine what it must have been like passing down from generation to generation the promise of that hope. I cannot imagine because you and I live in a time when all we had to do was turn the page.

Matthew 1:1 introduces the main actor in this epic thriller. The book of the generation of Jesus Christ. We didn’t have to wait. But wait!

We have been waiting over two thousand years on His promise to return. Maybe I do understand how Israel felt after all.

Faith makes it possible to endure the waiting.

Philippians 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

I love this passage. God does both, to will and to do of His good pleasure. I cannot wait. When is it going to happen?

Let me put it another way. Do you have to witness God at work in you or else it doesn’t happen? Even worse, do others have to see God at work in you before you will believe it?

Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Did Paul feel this way from the very moment he met Christ and on the road to Damascus? None of his writings indicate that. Even if Paul felt it, he didn’t pen it until this letter to the Galatians. Now mind you that Galatians is the first of four epistles to the early churches. The next three are deemed to be the prison epistles. Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians are great instruction books of the bible for the structure of the church and personal behavior of believers.

Do you think that Paul could have written such powerful messages if he had not believed that God could use him, even more powerfully while in chains? Paul wasn’t living out his life in the free exercise of his legs. He was living out his life in the free exercise of his faith. Paul didn’t get to see his faith played out in the churches, as much as he would have loved that. He trusted God to do the work.

Can you trust God to use you, even if you don’t get to see it?