Waiting on God

The other day, I was sitting with my 5 year old nephew waiting on a large game file to download onto my Playstation. As we were on the couch anxiously waiting for the file to finish, it decided to slow down at the 97% mark. I noticed that my nephew covered eyes with his hands and he began to pray: “Lord Jesus, please help that when I open my eyes that this download will be done.” To his disappointment, when he opened his eyes the download was still at 97%. So he prayed again… After a while he became frustrated and said, “God isn’t listening to my prayers.”

After my nephew expressed his frustration, I just told him that this was a download and that things like that just take time to work. I told him that it had nothing to do with whether or not God was listening to our prayers. I told him that sometimes God’s answer doesn’t come right when we want it to. He was fine with that explanation and went on completely secure in God’s love for him.

But I thought more about that moment later… I realized that so often I can act the same way towards God when I don’t get an immediate response to my prayers. If God is slow in answering me I can begin to doubt his care for me. But in reality, when I look at it from God’s perspective, all of my requests are like that game download. They are processes that take time to be accomplished. God has a perfect time for when they will be completed, and that time is completely up to Him. Just like I can’t rush my bandwidth to speed up a download, I can’t rush God.

Scripture is filled with examples of people waiting on God to fulfill what He had promised them. Look at any of the lives mentioned in Hebrews 11… They had to wait for God’s perfect timing. I can’t go wrong in waiting on God’s timing.

“No one who waits for You will be disgraced…”

— Psalm 25:3

Hope Against Hope

In reading the story of Abraham, I am amazed by the faith that he showed God. While Abraham was far from perfect, he lived his life with a clear conviction that God was willing and able to do what He promised to do.

God promised Abraham that he would be given a son, and in turn that son would be the first of countless descendants. Not only that, but God promised Abraham the land of Canaan to those descendants.

The faith of Abraham was truly inspiring. It’s one thing for me to believe that God will one day give me children… but Abraham was an old man when God was promising him this. He was 100 years old when Isaac was born! Now that is faith…

I love what Paul says about Abraham in Romans 4:

[Abraham] believed, hoping against hope, so that he became the father of many nations according to what had been spoken: So will your descendants be (verse 18).

And later:

He did not waver in unbelief at God’s promise but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, because he was fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform (verses 20-21).

Abraham trusted that the Lord was able to do everything that He promised Abraham. He put his trust in the person of God. So often we say, “I have faith, Lord,” but yet we continue to try and make things happen according to our power. Our faith must be grounded in the person of Christ, and we must trust that the things He has promised us He is also able to carry out.

Later on, God tests Abraham by asking him to sacrifice Isaac. Think about that… God asks him to give up the thing that he had hoped for all of his life. I can’t imagine what Abraham went through. The thing about it that astounds me is that he never wavered in his faith. Abraham trusted because, according to Hebrews 11:19, he believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead. Now THAT is faith…

We can learn so much from Abraham’s life. But at the very core of it is this: The One who promises is faithful.

God will not promise to do something that He is not able to do. What are the promises you’re holding onto today? Is your faith beginning to waver? Don’t lose hope. He who promises is faithful.