Day 27

We want everything now, but God doesn’t work that way.

‘Woe… to those who say, “Let God hurry; let him hasten his work so we may see it. The plan of the HolyOne of Israel—let it approach, let it come into view, so we may know it.”’ (Isaiah 5:18-19)

I often would spell out a word to students I worked with at Capernwray Bible School in England: W-A-I-T. They often wanted to turn the world upside down in one week but they needed to recognize the importance of waiting. Waiting is probably one of the hardest things for us to do these days because we live in an instant age where we expect things so quickly.

Some of the leading characters in Scripture had to wait a long time to see what God was doing with them. Abraham was 75 before God promised him a son from whom would come a nation, and another85 years before his first grandchild was born. Moses was 80 before God ever sent him back into Egypt to bring the Israelites out of slavery. Jesus was 30 before he preached a sermon or performed a miracle.God is never in a hurry. There is a lot to do in us before He does His main work through us. The waiting is not like sitting in a room waiting to be called, but it is time in which God is moulding and preparing us. Moses spent forty years as a refugee from Egypt in the desert of Midian looking after sheep, which unknown to him, equipped him for forty years in the Sinai desert looking after the Israelites. A credit card company had the slogan, ‘Take the waiting out of wanting.’ How about learning to take the wanting out of waiting? Trust Him – and wait.

Are you patiently waiting on God? He is not in a hurry.