Patience. We all need more, but we don't want to wait.
In our fast-paced, "microwave" culture, we want our food fast and our Internet faster. We don't want to wait in line, sit in traffic, or wait for an answer to prayer. How often do we pray once and give up when our prayer is not immediately answered? It would do us well to remember that anything worth having is worth waiting for.
When we're put in circumstances where patience is required, we sometimes find ourselves bailing out in frustration and disappointment-without learning the needed lessons and, regrettably, well before we enjoy the fruit of standing steadfast and unwavering in the window between the request and the response. When we do that, all we get in the end is "survival," without the precious fruit of growth in our lives.
The writer of Hebrews encourages us to press on-all the way through to the promise! Hebrews 6:12, "We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised." And in Hebrews 10:35-36 it says, 35 Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise."
The prophet Habakkuk (Hab 2:3) said, "For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." God's timing is perfect - delayed does not mean denied!
The prophet Habakkuk (Hab 2:3) said, "For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." God's timing is perfect - delayed does not mean denied!
Scripture says of Joseph that, "Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him." (Psalm 105:19)
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