By Marlene McBean
Let’s say we’re asking God for a particular thing, whether a house, car, baby, wife, husband or whatever. We have prayed and fasted many times for this thing but not seeing any results. The question is why haven’t we gotten it yet? Now, I believe the reason for delay is that maybe we have not prayed hard enough, or we are praying in doubt, not being consistent or simply not going after what we want. Faith without work is dead. Another reason is that God is saying wait, it’s not your time or wait I have something better for you.
Sometimes we do get the answer..
There are times also when we get the answer from God but the particular thing we want, is not what we get. We look on the type of thing that we want and not on the long term value of the thing. So we keep waiting…….. God will sometimes answer us through other people in regards to what to do, or where to go to get what we need. Many times God speaks but we do not listen and then He allows us to take what we think is best for us (His permissive will not His divine will). Some of us, because of how we were grown and taught we are set in our old ways and so not seeing the answer. Wait on God!
The Lord is not predictable
God doesn’t do the same thing all the time. He acts in different ways but with the same meaning. The thing we need will be right in front of us but because of the lack of knowledge, it passes us by and we live in regret because we are afraid to take chances. Hosea 4 vs 6
On the other hand we get frustrated while waiting too; we start feeling anxious, wondering how long it’s going to take. Most people don’t like to wait so this is where the permissive will kicks in because God says wait and to them it seems like it’s taking forever. This mindset usually carry over into our spiritual lives.
Our Father in heaven is always on time.
God is an on time God, sometimes he answers fast and another time it seems forever. The Lord doesn’t work on haste. God has a plan and a purpose for everything. Because we think we have everything figured out, we want God to work in our time frame and that’s not how he work.
If you look on the story of Lazarus, you’ll see that when Jesus showed up he was 4 days late and they fussed with him that he was late but he was still on time John 11
God has His own reasons
God has a reason for making us wait, it’s a part of our everyday life. If you study the life of Abraham, Joseph, Daniel, Moses, Noah Paul and Jesus you’ll see that waiting brings out the best or worse in people. If you don’t have good reasons for waiting then you won’t wait long because you don’t want to commit to see it through. Waiting builds our patience.
If we exercise patience in the small things, then we’ll be able accept the bigger things in life. Many times our focus is wrong, we don’t want to start small. Waiting also builds our anticipation. We tend to get excited. This happens especially when we’re praying for something and we get a glimpse of what the answer will be.
When we wait out the process and our prayers are answered, we tend to cherish and take care of what we were praying for. We treasure what we had waited for, it’s of more value to us. Waiting builds our Character. It smooth the rough edges in our lives. We become a more rounded individual, we become more appreciative of things and others. We become stronger in our Christianity (Isaiah 40 vs 31) It transforms our relationship with others and Jesus Christ. We learn to lean and depend on Jesus. We realize that we cannot do anything by ourselves (Psalm 62 vs 5-8).
To conclude, God is as equally interested in our journey as well as our destination. We may not understand why we have to wait. Of course we don’t know why it takes so long. There is also the question of why we don’t get what we’re waiting for. The good news is that God never ask us to wait and not come through for us. The end result is always good. We find renewed strength, we soar like an eagle, we don’t get weary, and we are on top of the world. So my advice to us is WAIT ON THE LORD AND BE OF GOOD COURAGE….(Psalm 27 vs 14)