Waiting Time

Have you ever been on hold on a phone call, waiting to be connected to speak to someone?  When you are on a call like this, you often get some dreadful music that is supposed to make you feel happy about life and calm you down, but I often find it has the exact opposite effect!

Recently, I was on a call to a company and they gave me a choice of which genre of music I wanted to listen to, but even that didn’t make it any better!  Quite simply we (or perhaps it’s just me) don’t like to be put on hold and have to wait.  The pace of society today is one that has lost the art of waiting and wants everything instantaneously.

In the readings this week there are a couple of reoccurring themes around obedience and faith – why not see if you can find them each day?

I want to look at one of these scriptures that is found in Hebrews 6 v 12: ‘We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.’

We often talk about faith, but one of the other key ingredients in seeing what God has promised you taking place is patience.  But what is this really?  Is it the endless waiting on hold until God can be bothered to answer and act?  Or is it something more significant?  One way I like to think of patience is that it is the active state of waiting in expectation.  It is not just simply sitting back and allowing things to happen but the constant and deliberate act of not giving up.

It doesn’t run ahead and try to make things happen.  In Genesis 12, God promised Abraham that he would become a great nation but having a child at the age of 75 didn’t happen straight away so Abraham tried to make it happen his own way.  Instead of staying patient with what God had promised, Abraham’s way ended up causing extra problems later on and this is what always happens when we stop being patient.  It took 25 years for Abraham to finally see what God had told him was going to happen!

Patience is a big deal for God.  Just as one of the fruits of the Spirit is patience, so we see that Love is first of all patient.  This is not an insignificant attribute but a key part of how God wants us to live.

From the time of the promise until the time we see it in front of us, we have to wait.  It’s a bit like being on hold on the phone. Whilst we wait, we can allow it to be frustrating or annoying to us or we might even be tempted to give up but I want to encourage you that we have the Holy Spirit living in us.  He helps us to stay patient, to keep in that place of faith and declare the promise.

I am sure that God has spoken promises to you over the years that you have known him. If you haven’t yet seen them happen I want to encourage you today to be patient and actively apply your faith, trusting that the One who made the promise is faithful and He will deliver.