But God slows us down
Jeremiah 33:3 The Message This is what the Lord says, “Call to me and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.”
Lamentations 3:26 The MessageIt’s a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God.
Dave and I only noticed this snake on a recent walk because we slowed down our normal pace to deliberately notice what was around us in the woods. See the bulge a few inches down from his head? He (she?) must have recently eaten.
I’m resonating in this season of my life with God’s invitations to us as recorded in Scripture. Like this one, so many of them contain a promise: “I will answer.”
We can absolutely count on the Lord’s promises! Yet Jeremiah reminds us that God’s timetable may not be ours, and that can feel very frustrating. Our whole culture is oriented toward instant gratification. If my daughter doesn’t respond to a text within a couple of hours, I start wondering whether something is wrong. If I have to wait ten minutes to get through a construction zone, it throws off my whole carefully calibrated schedule. If Prime can’t deliver what I want by tomorrow, I complain.
God’s purposes, though, can’t be accomplished instantaneously. What he most wants is to form us into people of integrity and nobility of character. Our convenience, comfort, pleasures, and preferences—mmm, not so much.
Sometimes that means having to wait. That’s hard for us. We’re like fussy, impatient, self-centered children. Sometimes it means a reshaping of what we think we want and think we need. Because God wants us to grow up, to mature. He wants us to grow in patience and all the other lovely fruit of the Spirit.
God’s work can be slow. It challenges all our impulses to have what we want when we want it. Right now.
Yet God truly loves us and promises good to us. The NIV translates Lamentations 3:25-26 like this: The Lord is good to those who depend on him … so it is good to wait quietly for the Lord.
What are you waiting for? Can you surrender today to the Lord’s loving wisdom, to his invitation to believe the promise he will answer, even when it takes more time and looks different from what you ask for from your limited perspective?
I’m asking myself these questions today.
Debra Kornfield 