Ten Years Later, Same Promise, Bigger Field (Matthew 7:7-8)

From a localization conversation with BSF to tri-bible.ai. The promise never moved. I just kept knocking.

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Ten years ago I sat down with BSF to talk about an architect role. My focus was data management, localization and web app distribution (moving away from print). Getting the Word into more languages, for more people who had never read it in their own. As I talked about localization and the "international" aspect of BSF it become clear this was the wrong direction at that time. In fact, during an interview I was caught in a hail storm and had to leave the early. This was the Lord's providence. 

Expectation vs Budget in God's economy - requires Character that is only developed over time. 

The verb that built it

Jesus did not say ask once and wait. The NLT catches the tense the way He meant it: keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking (Matthew 7:7-8).

• The door opens to people who stay at the door. (John 10:7,9, Psalm 23)
• That is the whole story of the last ten years. Not one big yes. A thousand small knocks.

Three witnesses, one pattern

God hands us a miracle. Then He does something bigger we never thought to ask for. And some of what He starts in us takes generations to finish.

Moses: the miracle you remember is not the biggest one. We remember the sea. But God had more. Moses never set foot in the Promised Land in his lifetime. He saw it from a mountain and died there (Deuteronomy 34:1-4). Then, centuries later, he stood on another mountain, in the land he had been kept out of, next to Jesus Himself (Matthew 17:1-3; Luke 9:30-31). The miracle he is famous for was parting water. The one he never asked for was standing with the Messiah in glory.

Nehemiah: a prayer for courage, then a wall in 52 days. Nehemiah's first miracle was small and quiet. He prayed for the nerve to ask a king one question (Nehemiah 1:11; 2:4-5). God answered. Then came the bigger one. A wall that had been rubble for over a century went back up in 52 days (Nehemiah 6:15). Less than two months. The courage to ask came first. The wall came after.

Joseph: some dreams take generations. Joseph saved a nation from famine. That is not what Hebrews 11 remembers him for. It remembers his dying words: carry my bones out of Egypt (Hebrews 11:22; Genesis 50:25). He believed a promise he would not live to see. His bones waited about 400 years, until Israel walked out and carried them home (Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32). God gives dreams that outlive us. That is not failure. That is faith.

The invitation

God can do infinitely more than we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).

• Read the order again. He does the more. But He waits for us to ask.
• He wants us to imagine. Then He says: ask, seek, knock. And keep on.

The bottom line

Ten years ago I thought this was a localization conversation and had the idea of explaining how loaves and fishes worked.

Today I can tell you what it really was. I found treasure hidden in a field (Matthew 13:44). And I am selling everything to buy the field.

Alleluia.