Another stumbling block in our culture is immediacy. We expect things to work out right away. We expect to get what we pay for immediately. Two-day shipping at most. We expect our wi-fi to be instantaneous and our home internet even faster. We expect that when we tell God we trust Him to work things out, our problems will be smoothed over by the next morning.
Things don’t always work out that way. God doesn’t always wrap things up quickly and neatly in twenty-four hours. Or even a week. Or a month. Do you ever find yourself amazed at the patience of Biblical characters who waited years for God’s will to be done? We already discussed Abram, who had to wait until he was 100 years old before the child of God’s promise was born to him. His descendant Joseph waited for years as a slave, and then as a prisoner after being falsely accused, before fulfilling the prophesied task God had given him of becoming a man of authority and saving his family and probably millions more from starvation.
I’ve written earlier about how we have to practice before playing a concerto. We have to put in the work before playing an instrument becomes second nature. The same is true of learning to live as a child of God. We’re not going to become perfect overnight. What we perceive as God’s slowness is perhaps just His way of making us practice. God’s timing is not our timing, and He might just have a few things for us to learn along the way. Waiting is not a waste of time. Waiting is part of trusting. So we need not be discouraged when tomorrow doesn’t bring all the answers. We can still trust Him.
I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
Lamentations 3:24-26