Saturday, February 21, 2015

The waiting game

I decided to pick up the story of David in the Old Testament at 2Sam. 3 this morning. It begins like this:
That was the beginning of a long war between those who were loyal to Saul and those who were loyal to David.
How long, I don't know, but it had already been quite a long time since David had been anointed as Saul's successor and still he wasn't fully established as king. That got me thinking about a few other stories in the Old Testament.

Abraham, for instance, was around 75 when God called him and told him he would be the father of many nations. Yet it would be another 25 years before Issac was born. Joseph spent something like 13 years in prison and Isaiah spoke about things over 700 years into the future. Things he probably longed to see but would never do so.

So, how long is long enough to wait for God to fulfil a promise? Days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries?

It wasn't an epiphany this morning, just a reminder that things can take longer than we'd like them to, and that God moves at his pace and not ours. There are times when I wonder why I'm where I am doing what I'm doing. Days turn into weeks and months with no apparent progress and then all of a sudden something happens and God's hand is revealed. Learning to live with the wait is quite possibly the hardest part of being a disciple.

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