God’s plan and timing is not always our plan and timing. We may think we’re smart, and we may think we know the perfect solution, but all too often we let our impatience push us into making a wrong decision. Our lives are short after all! Shouldn’t we go ahead and try out a few things, instead of waiting? Even if our plan is a bit sketchy or questionable? It is tempting, but God knows considerably more than we do, so His plan always turns out best. But we have to be patient enough to wait for it.
God told Abram that he would have as many descendants as grains of sand. Abram wanted to believe Him, but he had no child, and was getting up there in years. Abram and his wife ran out of patience and took things into their own hands. They decided Abram could have a child with one of their servants instead of his wife, and that would be good enough.
Well, that was not good enough for God, and this child of impatience ended up causing conflict after conflict, all the way down to our present time. If only Abram had been more patient, and waited. Eventually, a child was born to Abram and his wife. They named him Isaac and he became the forefather of the entire Jewish people.
Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.
Genesis 21:2
It is so easy to hear this story now, thousands of years later, and point out exactly what Abram should have done. He should have just waited a little bit longer! It’s harder to be patient in our own lives, when we don’t know the future and just want what we want now. But consider any quick decisions we’ve already made in the past, and wonder how our lives might have been different if we had only been patient enough to wait on God!
But do 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. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
2 Peter 3:8-9