“Those who wait on the
Lord shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31).
The New
Testament tells us that the three great Christian virtues are faith, hope, and
love. But along with other virtues such
as joy, gentleness, and humility, we are urged to pursue patience. And patience is increasingly difficult for us
to find. When we want something, we want
it right away. Any delay in attaining
our desires seems to be more than we can bear.
Patience is a
critical part of the Christian way of life.
When we seek God’s answer for our prayers, do we ever get bent out of
shape because he answers them too quickly?
Not that I’ve ever seen! We
struggle with how long it takes for God to do what we want him to, or what we
expect him to.
This is not
something unique to our microwave, instant oatmeal era. For thousands of years, God’s people wrestled
with how long it seems for him to get around to doing what we hope for. I suspect that as the ancient Israelites
suffered as slaves for four centuries in Egypt, more than a few of them
wondered why God was taking so long to deliver them. I count at least ten times that the psalmists
ask the Lord, “How long?” How long will
you allow the wicked to prosper? How
long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I struggle? One of
the greatest crises in the early church was what scholars call “the delay of
the parousia:” a fancy way to say that they thought Jesus would return very
soon. He didn’t, and he still
hasn’t. Nearly every generation of
Christians since the resurrection has hoped that Christ would come in their
time. And so far, he hasn’t.
I suspect
you’ve experienced the same thing in your life that I have: that which you’ve
been hoping and praying for just never seems to happen. It takes forever, and you don’t know how much
longer you can last. You simply can’t
understand why God is taking so long.
Perhaps it even makes you wonder if he cares, or will ever take care of
you. “Waiting on the Lord” sounds
inspirational when you read it in the Bible or hear about it in church, but
living it can really drain you.
In the
leadership program that I’m going through this year, we’ve talked about the
need for changes to happen slowly. When
we see something as a church that “needs to be fixed,” we often jump in with a
quick fix, without considering what’s really going on. And we’re likely to latch onto one Big Idea
that we think will take care of things, when in reality the process includes
many different small steps, some of which will work and some of which won’t.
The Greek
word (úπομονη) that we
typically translate as “patience” doesn’t simply mean sitting around on the
bench the hallway, waiting for something to happen. It can also be translated into words like
“endurance” and “perseverance.” Waiting
on the Lord takes effort, and it means we’re at work while we watch for what he
will do.
2 comments:
I just want you to know how much this spoke to me.
I found a beautiful home a few weeks ago and a man claiming to be you was "renting it for cheep" because he was a "missionary in africa" for 5 days I prayed to get that home knowing that it would be gone because of the price and the style home it was I begged God to save it for me and this man used my faith to steal my money. After a few days of moping around and trying to get him to admit what he did was wrong I found your blog that had not been touched in a few years minus this post.
You lifted me out of my hole and slapped the good faith back into me. God doesn't give you what you want, he gives you what you need and what I needed was to read this..
Isaiah 40:27-31 has helped me through so much in my life, so much that I got the verse tattooed on me to remind myself yet I often forget, And I must thank you again. Keep the faith and continue this blog cause you have an official follower
I'm glad to hear my post was helpful for you during a difficult time. Sorry to hear that someone claiming to be me had duped you this way.
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