Published by admin on 12 Aug 2011 at 09:00 am
WAIT TRAINING
Have you ever wondered why some things take so long? We live in a society where everything is instant. We expect instant coffee, fast foods, lightning fast internet service, fast cars, and quick service when we go to a store. We microwave our food to cook it because we don’t want to wait for it to cook on a stove. We use credit cards because we just have to have everything right now, instead of saving up our money for the purchases we want to make. Everything is hurry, hurry, hurry, and it goes against our nature to wait for anything, so I’ll get to the point quickly.
It seems to take forever for us to get around to spending time with God. And when we do, we want God to give us a major revelation in five seconds flat. Hurry up, God, I have other things to do. A two second “Bless me and my family” should be enough to sustain my prayer life, then I can go on to the task of satisfying my every whim. Sound familiar? To cure of us this terrible condition, perhaps the LORD should use WAIT TRAINING as the treatment.
What? I gotta wait for God to help me? Well, that should depend on how long He has to wait for you to pay attention to Him when you’re not in trouble. You know, in the natural, it makes a person stronger to lift weights each day, and it’s called “weight training”. The more you lift, and the more times you lift it, the bigger your muscles get. So it seems fitting that it would make us stronger in the spirit if we underwent “wait training” every day, instead of getting what we ask God for so quickly, if we had to wait and suffer a bit of discomfort before getting what we want. And many people think God does exactly that. But that would go against the very nature of a God who sent His own Son to the earth to relieve suffering. He healed the sick, and didn’t make them wait. He went to the cross as payment for our sins, so we could have fellowship with God RIGHT NOW, with no separation between Him and us. So I can’t see that God is the one putting things off, it’s US.
As you know, God can do in one second what would take us a lifetime to accomplish, and time only exists so man can measure the passage of events in his life. God is not constrained by time whatsoever. The problem getting things done seems to be on mankind’s end, not God’s. According the Holy Bible, it only took God six days to accomplish the creation, so if you want to talk about fast, you need to talk to God. Ever since man was created upon the earth, God has spent thousands of years waiting for man to fellowship with Him. It seems mankind is interested in spending his time in pursuit of everything BUT God. However, when mankind needs something, then suddenly he expects God to come running to his rescue, even though five minutes before his problem arose, he couldn’t be bothered to seek God at all.
And though it would be fitting and just for God to make us wait as long for help as He waits to hear from us when we DON’T need help, we find He really doesn’t do that. Now I realize sometimes it LOOKS like God is making us wait for help from Him, but that isn’t how it is. God describes Himself as I AM. That, my friend, is present tense, which means He is not “I WAS”, or “I WILL BE”, BUT “I AM”, meaning “right now”, which is real handy for us, because right now is when we really need Him. However, I have to ask you, is “right now” when you are paying attention to God? Or is God sitting on His Throne, keeping His day open, hoping to hear from you when you can squeeze in a few moments for Him?
It reminds me somewhat of parents who so carefully and lovingly raise their children, but they seldom if ever hear from them once they grow up and move away. The parents miss their kids and look forward to days of fellowship with them, but the only time they hear from the kids is when they need a babysitter or need some money. It shouldn’t be that way. But isn’t that how most of us treat God? Do we make Him wait patiently for the sound of our voice in prayer? Our worship and fellowship are the only things we can give God that He doesn’t already have, and that is what He craves the most. He loves us so dearly and delights Himself in spending time with us, speaking with us, and listening to the cares of our heart. Are we making it a priority to spend quality time alone with God each day, or are we using WAIT TRAINING to manipulate Him? We need to really think about that.