Growth - Time
It takes a little time sometimes.... Rome wasn’t build in a day... It just doesn’t happen overnight... Anything worthwhile takes time and effort....
How many times do kids say “I wish I were older” or “I can’t wait until I grow up”? How many times do parents think, “take your time and enjoy each stage of life”? Let’s face it time is not a true indicator of growth but it is a required part of the growth process. It takes time to grow.
However perhaps we are not talking so much about time as we are about waiting.
Ps 27:14
14 Wait on the LORD;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the LORD!
We, our society that is, has perhaps forgotten what it means to wait. Everybody know that we have fast food, microwaves, high-speed internet, instant soup, minute rice, drive-thru, pre-cooked/pre-prepared, etc. So it is not surprising that we want things to happen, “now”! However as we look at God’s Word we see that there is a time and place for everything. And as we look at the world we see there are a lot of good thing, ideas, products and programs but they can be introduced at the wrong time. God has a right time for things and His time and ours are often different.
In the Bible we see people that had dreams, promises, projects, ideas desires etc that required them to wait for the right time ... until they or someone or something else was ready.
Some of the best knowns stories in the Bible are about people that needed to wait on the Lord.
Abraham - God gave him a promise. He sent him to a new land. He said I will make you a great nation and I will give this land to your decedents. However, Abraham waited 25 years for the promised son (and made a few mistakes trying to speed up the process). However, when God came to him and asked him to sacrifice Isaac, the long awaited answer to the promise, Abraham was ready because he had learned faith and learned that he could trust God.
Moses - He was not an ordinary child. God protected him from being killed as a child. In fact, he was a child of promise. He would deliver Israel from slavery. However, as a young man he went out and saw the problems of his people. He was passionately moved. He wanted to free them. He tried in his own strength. Yet, he ended up running for his life. He was gone for 40 years! Then God sent him back with what he would need to free Israel. It was during this time that Moses learned how to care for, serve and shepherd patiently and humbly the people that he would bring out of Egypt. He spend time in God’s school of waiting.
David - He was a young man (probably in his early teens) when God told Samuel to anoint him as the next king over Israel. He had great victories, big responsibilities, hard and difficult trials, pressure to rush ahead of God. Yet, David refused. Twice he could have killed Saul and taken the kingdom of Israel for himself by force. Instead he waited on God. It was many years later until he became a king and even then it was only part of what God had promised. Still, in the end God fulfilled His promise to David and David was known as a man after God’s heart. Did he make mistakes? Yes, but God also used that time to prepare and shape him.
Waiting on the Lord is hard. Time is a valuable thing that we don’t want to waste but we also see that God is not in a hurry, nor does He waste. He is more concerned with who we are and our relationship with Him and He is willing to be patient to see it be what it can and should be. We don’t like to wait but it is a part of the growth process and over and over in scripture we are told to wait upon the Lord.
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