Song of the Day: “Running” (Hillsong United, Cornerstone (2012))
Patience is a virtue…a very frustrating virtue. Probably one of my biggest mistakes in life is having expected God to change things in my life IMMEDIATELY instead of taking his time. I ran ahead of God and then ended up in a really bad spiritual slump which I have just emerged from. Through that time the biggest lesson I’ve learned is to be patient and do your job.
If there’s anything I’ve learned about God, it’s that he is very very loving…and very very chill. He tends to take His sweet time on stuff, especially prayer requests. While He takes His sweet time, we end up having to wait and hopefully end up growing during the wait. And then, the answer to prayer will come JUST when you need it, at the PERFECT time—because God is like that. Takes his sweet time but never shows up late.
Let’s be honest—waiting is not fun to think about, and it’s also not all we do. We are on a journey, a lifelong journey, with the Holy Spirit as our guide. If we think about it, it’s a lot like running a race or being on a sports team. This is how I like to think about the journey—as a sport. In sports (or at least serious sports) you train more or less every day (with a rest day), you get taught and given advice by your coach, and you play games or matches or go to meets to compete. It’s the same with life: God is the coach, your training is the Bible and your competitions are life situations.
The “race” metaphor appears in 1 Corinthians:
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. (1 Corinthians 9:24-25 ESV)
And so, literally, we are running a race. And we have to keep pace so we can get to the goal.
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