Have you ever tried to take a group of rambunctious kids on a road trip? If so, you know that experience can test your patience and your faith. You might have only been in the car 30 minutes, and the kids are asking you from the back seat “Are we there yet?” When they ask you the first time, you might think it’s cute and will gently respond to them by saying not yet. However, when they ask you four more times within an hour, you are trying to stop yourself from pulling over the car and strangling them. The reality is, when it comes to children, the concept of patience is foreign. In most cases, kids are just focused on what they want at that moment, and they want it to come right away. As children of God, we tend to be the same way, screaming “Are we there yet God?” when we just pulled out of the garage so to speak for certain parts of our journey.
God, in His infinite wisdom, looks at your life from a wide view 400,000 feet lens. He sees the entire process that you need to go through to get the optimal result, so although it might seem like God is taking all day to respond, in reality, He is not looking at time in terms of days and hours. As the scripture states in 2 Peter 3:8-9 , “the Lord is not slow in keeping His promises, as some understand slowness.” You might be sitting there thinking that God is taking all day and is not listening to your prayers because he hasn’t “answered” it right away. When in all reality, God has heard each and every one of your prayers, and if you are praying for something that is in line with God will, He will most certainly fulfill it. Hebrews 10:35-36 “So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.”
God, unlike man, keeps His word every time. The problem is, when we don’t see the manifestation of His promise right away, we automatically think that God has gone back on His Word, which couldn’t be further from the truth. He is simply saying “No, we are not there yet?” The book of Hebrews is reminding us that we should continue to put our confidence in God, and fighting our natural inclination to become so impatient with the process itself, that we give up before we ever have a chance to reach the place that God is calling us to.
In the bible, the story of David is the perfect example of this. David was a young boy when he was first anointed by God to become king. At the time, there was another king on the throne named Saul. Once David received a confirmation by the word of God, he patiently awaited his time to step into that position. Although Saul has a personal vendetta against David for many years, David did not try to retaliate or take Saul from the throne prematurely. He guarded his heart, making sure that it remained pure and acceptable unto the Lord until his appointed time came to step into that role several years later.
We have to come to grips with the fact that delayed does not mean denied. If we go to the airport to catch a flight, and the flight attendants tell us that our flight is going to be delayed for two hours for emergency maintenance on the plane, we are not going to sit there and tell the flight attendant “I don’t care that you need to do maintenance on the plane, I still expect for you to take off at the time that was originally scheduled because I have plans.” That flight attendant is going to stand there and look you right in the eye to say, “You and your plans can have a seat right now, because this flight will be delayed for two hours.” Any rational person in that situation would say to themselves, “Dang, I would’ve preferred that the flight departed on time, but at the end of the day, our safety is more important and I would much rather get to my destination in one piece.”
When it comes to our lives, God knows us better than we know ourselves. God knows in some cases, if he doesn’t delay opening certain doors for us before we are ready, we will either act like a fool and mess it up or will buckle under the pressure that comes with walking through that door. God understands that sometimes He must delay the “take-off” towards our destination, to do some maintenance on our heart, our spirit, our minds, so that when it’s time for us to finally take off, He is confident that we will make it to our destination safely. So the next time you find yourself asking the question "Are we there yet?", remember that God is in control, so you can enjoy the journey while you wait.
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