2 Peter 3:8-9
Don’t overlook the obvious here, friends. With God, one day is as good as a thousand years, a thousand years as a day. God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change.
Scripture quotations from The Message. © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved.
In a few days, our little Timothy will be four years old. We are celebrating his birthday tomorrow with an afternoon party. A few days ago, he told my niece, “Mother, my friends need to come for my party. When will they be here?” She explained that his party was not for several days, and he would have to wait. When you are almost four, several days can seem like several years! At the other end of the spectrum, my grandmother used to tell me often, “I don’t know why the LORD doesn’t take me.” She longed for heaven, and the last two years, especially, seemed like two hundred years to her. We would talk about how God still had plans for her... she still had work to do… but knowing this really made the waiting no easier.
One of the hardest things for us to understand in our Christian faith is God’s timing. We have a terrible time understanding that God’s “day” may be far longer than our 24-hours/1440 minutes. We may wonder why He doesn’t answer quickly – but on His timetable, He did exactly that! We may ask, “Why hasn’t the LORD healed me?” When we get to Heaven, He may say, I healed you in the same day – by my calculations! When we feel that God is not answering us… or that He is not working quickly, we need to stop and remind ourselves that we operate on very different schedules!
As this passage illustrates, we must also remember that what we observe as God’s reluctance to act quickly may actually be His patience as we find our way to him. He may very well operate with restraint in order to give us “space and time to change.” And we should be incredibly grateful for this!
Patience is not my strong suit. But if I wish to truly grow in my faith and my relationship with God, I need to cultivate endurance, tolerance, and staying power. I need to learn to “be still and know” that God is on my side… to rest in His timing and operate with confidence as I wait on Him to work. And when God seems “late,” I need to recognize His self-control on my behalf.
If we stop and look closely, we can often see the perfection in God’s timing. We can understand that He always has our best interests in mind. This may not make waiting for a fourth birthday party any easier, but it can help us to wait for the LORD to work – according to His perfect timing. Don’t you think it’s worth a try?
©2013 Debbie Robus
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