One of the greatest challenges in life is having to wait. Waiting for an exceptionally long red light or in the doctor's office can be bothersome enough. But what about waiting for things like a spouse, or to become parents, or for a better job, or for a health issue to be resolved? The challenge is to keep our faith engaged instead of agreeing with the lies that we are abandoned, forgotten, and alone.
There is often a blatant difference between God’s Time versus My Time. We can make the mistake of thinking that My Time is the right timing. My Time is when I think things should happen, while Divine Time is the right time for things to happen.
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promises as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (1 Peter 3:9)
Do you ever feel like God is late? In Exodus 32, the Israelites thought Moses was “late” in coming down the mountain. Moses had gone up the mountain to meet with the Lord and receive the tablets of stone engraved with the law and commands for their instruction. He was taking a long time, so the Israelites took matters into their own hands, and disaster followed. They asked for a golden calf to be made so they could worship that god instead. Ouch!
God knows sometimes we will need to hang on longer than we naturally would like to, so He provided for us through the Holy Spirit. As believers, the Holy Spirit lives inside of us and can flow out His wonderful attributes—one of which is longsuffering.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22)
What would have happened if the Israelites had hung on a few more hours, and had a bit more faith in waiting for Moses? The whole catastrophe could have been avoided. How we handle waiting according to God’s Time is a good measure of our spiritual maturity. Will we allow delays to make us drift off into sin or give up? Or will we allow these times to deepen our perseverance in God?
To live according to My Time leads to pain, frustration, and missed blessing. Let’s set our clocks to Divine Time and relax. God knows exactly when the right time is and He won’t be late.