October 20, 2006
Let it be said here and now that the little people in my life (and, no, I don’t mean leprechauns) will often demonstrate a mastery of articulating what I find myself thinking or feeling. When having to navigate my way through the midst of difficult or trying times, I am sometimes tempted, down deep in the recesses of my heart, to be somewhat less than spiritual and get bent out of shape about my circumstances. There are moments when it seems to me that there are simply no words that can describe the emotions swirling around inside of me. And then there are moments when I am astounded with how well one of my children sums up what I tend to complicate in my own thinking, muddling, as it were, what is really a very simple truth or fact.
My youngest son, for example, recently encapsulated in six words the very issue that tends to weaken and wear down most of us at some season of our lives or maybe even many seasons of our lives. In a moment of brilliant imagery, he left me feeling a bit stupefied by the succinct way he captured my tendency for frustration when God doesn’t answer my prayers on MY time table. One afternoon, when feeling a bit impatient for his supper, he asked my wife when it would be time to eat. “A couple of minutes, honey,” was the reply. He gasped and with a distraught look of horror, clasped his face and moaned, “Oh, Mom! For me minutes seem like years!” Of course, it really was a matter of only a few minutes, but for a six-year-old, minutes do indeed seem like years.
I’m convinced that this really is a problem for all of us, whether we’re six-years-old or sixty. There are times when we simply can’t understand why we must wait and why the Lord doesn’t just do something quick. We drum our spiritual fingers and our souls sigh with impatience as we wonder what in the world could be taking God so long. On the one hand, we talk about “waiting on the Lord”, while on the other we are perhaps busily rationalizing our impatience with soothing excuses for doubting God. “Well, I was in a tight spot and just HAD to do something!” “Oh, God doesn’t hear me and so I just gave up!” “But everyone else was doing something and I thought I ought to do what they were doing!”
We have a knack for trying to run God’s blessing for our lives on a stopwatch. But whatever we may expect for the Lord’s timing for us, we must simply remember to “…not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8 NIV).
What you now do with this truth will have tremendous impact on whether or not you’ll really see God’s power at work in your life. Whether it takes God ten minutes or ten years, your holding fast to an unswerving confidence in Him will dictate to you the measure of how much you’ll experience His workings in your life.
“Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him and He will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes” (Psalm 37:5-7 NIV).
What appear to be delays in God’s answers for your life are in fact seasons of preparation and building that take place out of sight so that the Lord’s blessings might be realized more fully than you had ever hoped. Not only that, but what may often appear to be as a lull in divine activity very often turns out to be a season of grace, as God throws open windows of opportunity for people to turn from self-will and sin and turn instead to the forgiveness and cleansing that only faith in Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection offers us.
“The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9 NIV).
Are you waiting expectantly on God? Are you facing needs in your life that you try to give to Him while trying not to grab them back because He doesn’t seem to have noticed? As you wait on Him, does doubt gnaw at you and black thoughts of discouragement seep through your veins?
“Why do you say… and complain…, ‘My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God’? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:27-31 NIV).
If you are waiting on God, don’t give up and throw in the towel, taking yourself offline for downloads of blessing that God has ordained for you. No… instead do what His Word would have you do in the cultivating of your relationship with Him. Read the Bible, seek God’s face faithfully in prayer, learn to worship Him among a community of Believers in a local church, serve Him in the myriad of ways He provides you each day of the week, and search your heart under His leading so that He can work inside of you to make room for His blessings for you, in you, and through you.
In the end, staying faithful to the One, Whose name is synonymous with faithfulness, keeps your heart in a spiritual posture that remains ready to be blessed… whether the timing is only a few minutes or even a few years.
(Thom Mollohan and his family have ministered in southern Ohio the past eleven years. He is the pastor of Pathway Community Church, which meets on Sunday mornings at the Ariel Theatre. He may be reached for comments or questions by email at pastorthom@pathwaygallipolis.com).
