Give God a chance to work in your life

Do you give God a chance to work in your life? Or do you expect microwaved, freeze-dried, instant results?

We singles are victims of our culture. We want what we want, and we want it right now!

When a web page takes five seconds to load, we get upset. When we have to wait in line at the supermarket, we get irritated. And if we're in line at the bank behind an elderly person, we quickly forget that we will be old someday too. Unless we kill ourselves from our own impatience first.

In his book, If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat, John Ortberg notes that in America, your status in society reflects whether you have to wait (I suspect it's even worse in other countries). The lower your status, the more you have to wait on other people. The most "important" people make others wait for them.

God is the most important being in the entire universe. He's at the top. So it stands to reason that all of us have to wait for him. But that's not how we like it, so we get all worked up and try to hurry him along.

When you don't give God a chance to work out a solution and insist on an immediate answer, you're telling him to obey you, to hurry up because your way is best.

Some people get through their entire life and never learn that lesson. They never believe the truth of Harry Emerson Fosdick's statement, "God is not a cosmic bell-boy."

Quality work takes time

Genesis tells us that God created everything in six days, and on the seventh day he rested. Don't you think this all-powerful being could have created everything in one day? Sure he could have! But God did not rush, and he won't allow us to rush him either.

If you ask God to act in your life, you may try to impose a deadline on him. You may believe that the opportunity of a lifetime has come up, and if you don't get God's intervention right away, you'll miss it altogether.

Fortunately for us, God knows the future. In my own life, I prayed those kinds of desperate prayers. God knew what was best for me, though, and looking back years later, I saw the wisdom of his delay. And sometimes, what I thought was the opportunity of a lifetime would have, instead, turned out to be a lifetime of misery.

Many of us want a "drive-through" life, but nothing worthwhile can be done in a rush. Fast food may be fast, but it's certainly not the tastiest, most nutritional meal you can eat. If we don't give God a chance to do things his way, in his time, we risk stepping outside his will--into failure.

When you give God a chance--both time and opportunity to work--you're obeying him, and obedience always brings blessings.

God's timing requires faith

No doubt about it, waiting is frustrating. Waiting on God takes faith. It takes faith that he will act, and faith that he will act in time. If your faith is weak, waiting on God can seem like torture.

However, God's goal isn't to torture us, but rather to strengthen our faith in him. When someone comes through for us, it's easier to trust them the next time.

If you've been disappointed by a lot of people throughout your life, you may have a hard time trusting anyone, including God. If you refuse to give God a chance and trust him, you'll live a life of anxiety and despair.

"Are you growing yet?"

Maybe you've had the experience of planting seeds. You put them in the ground or pot at the right depth, cover them with dirt, water them, then wait. But you don't keep digging them up, asking, "Are you growing yet?"

We'll give seeds a chance to grow, but we won't give God a chance to work. We have to renounce our instincts. We have to give up the feeling that everything should come to us right now.

We have to ignore what the world tells us and believe what God tells us about himself, namely that he is trustworthy, that he does have our best interest at heart, and that his timing is perfect, no matter how it may seem.

Don't give up. Instead, give God time. Give him a chance to work.

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