Are you ever just about your business and God interrupts you with a grand promise that looks nothing like your reality? Any Christian who has chosen this path of, ‘in truth and in spirit’ knows what I am talking about. If not, this has been my story more times than I can remember, and I think I can finally speak on it.

The whole idea is that, in the midst of going about life ordinarily, God will just divinely interrupt my life to plant this promise and vision that looks completely different from my reality. While that promise may seem insignificant, it begins to alter my perspectives and filter my desires. Soon enough, I realize that I want things that are bigger than me, and that’s when impatience begins because I have to wait on God until my reality can catch up to His promise.

There is nothing particularly fun or exciting about waiting on God’s promises. For one, they are not promises that you went looking for, but now the longing in your heart for them is unquenchable until you get to the promise. In my rough patches of waiting on God, I have learned to never despise the promises of God. If God would care enough to want it for you, you must care enough to want it for yourself. Here are a few things you may want to remember while you wait:

• Promises are God’s way of being a father

Fathers naturally tend to make promises to their kids as ways to create relationships and strengthen their bonds. A promise to watch your favorite movie or go to Disneyland on your birthday, for instance, are ways that your father, or mother, can show their love for you. I think it’s the same for God. Ideally, there was already a plan in motion for your purpose on earth that God has predetermined for you to fulfill. He has all these great plans for our lives that Jeremiah 29:11 talks of. He even says that no eye has seen or ears heard the plans that He has for you. In that sense, making grand promises is God’s way of expressing His love as a father to you, His child.

“Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” -Psalms 139:16

• God’s promises are revelations about your life’s purpose.

When God makes promises, He reveals certain truths to you that are otherwise secret wisdom. Although you may not know that you needed the promise, God goes ahead to promise it because it provides directives for you to walk in His purpose for your life. God will ensure that you never really have to be blindsided in life by providing prophetic revelations as promises you can clutch onto as you walk this journey called life.

“Surely the Lord GOD does nothing Unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.” – Amos 3:7

• Despising God’s promise equates to abandoning your birthright.

When God speaks a word to you, it is an assurance of an unmerited blessing over your life. A promise from God is an indication of favor. Despising favor from God is holding Him in contempt. It shows a lack of reverence for who He is as a father but also for what He can do through you and for you. Despising birthright and blessings has consequences. You may find yourself dethroned like Saul for failure to understand the kind of anointing you carry and how crucial it is to remain obedient to the Sustainer of it.

“… Thus Esau despised his birthright.” – Genesis 25:34

• God’s promise must come to pass

God is not a man that He should lie. He does not make promises that He is incapable of fulfilling. He does not bite more than He can chew. Therefore, if He says He is going to do something, best believe that He will do exactly that. Any word that goes out from God’s mouth cannot return to Him empty, but it must accomplish that which He purposed. Every little or big thing that God promises to do, He sure does it. The problem is that we get too caught up in the timeline of when God will bring things to pass and we keep nagging Him about how He will do it, enough to allow doubt to cloud our sight of what the promise was about.

“For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.” – 2 Corinthians 1:20

• You do not have to ask God for promises

Unlike other kinds of blessings and breakthroughs you may have to trust God for, promises are different. They are initiated and fulfilled by God – it is not up to you to give God ideas about the kind of promises He should make to you. It is not your responsibility to give God the desires of your heart as a blueprint for the kind of promises you want.

Promises are God’s way of intervening in your life. They are assurances of His guidance and shepherding in the foreseeable future of your life.

They are God’s way of assuring you that you will never have to navigate life alone. I think that’s why He makes promises and covenants for generations, ensuring that His word is kept from one generation to another. He did it with Abraham all the way to Joseph and Judah, and also with David all the way to Jesus. God’s longevity when it comes to promises is how He gets all the glory.

If nothing else adds up, acknowledge that His promises over your life are bigger than you. They are about a greater plan that goes beyond you. God’s promise to Abraham was about birthing a nation called Israel and from it, a community of nations. His word over your life is not to be taken lightly. It is the continuation of a plan that was orchestrated even before you came to Earth.