Children are born with little patience and little understanding of the value of waiting. Any parent or teacher can attest to that; especially during the days leading up to special events. The minutes seem like hours; the hours seem like days and the days like years. Loving caregivers feel their charges’ anxiety and frustration, and while they sympathise, most adults know it will be worth the wait. Christmas celebrated on December 12th; birthday gifts opened three days before the great day, and Thanksgiving celebrated in July would all fall flat. Joyful anticipation enhances our pleasure when the big day finally arrives.
A groom becomes frustrated at all the elaborate planning that goes into a wedding, but that frustration melts away at first glance of his bride as she approaches on the arm of her father. A mother longs for the day that the baby growing inside her is safe and snug in her arms and yet prays that the day won’t come prematurely. Workers wait for retirement while hoping they still have enough time to build a healthy nest-egg through hard work and diligent saving. Parents dream of grandchildren but pray that their children are married and are well established young adults before those grandchildren appear.
God places a high value on our trust in the waiting
Yet, in our impatience to see God’s hand move in stressful situations, we demand of Him, “Now, Lord, let it be now!” We fail to understand the necessity of the waiting.
When I was a child, my mother had a beautiful flower garden. My favourite perennials in that garden were her peony bushes. They took a long time to blossom in comparison to her annuals. In my impatience, I would try to help the flowers along by peeling the sticky leaves away from the large buds. The resulting misshapen, puny flowers puzzled my mother as she never caught me in the act of performing exploratory surgery on her plants. As a preschooler, it never occurred to me that my attempts to help Mother Nature caused each flower I touched to fall short of its full potential.
Galatians 6:9 – “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”
God knows that there is a season for all things. He tends His most prized crops by nurturing and watering them with His truths while patiently waiting and watching for them to become strong. God declares the season of the harvest only when His crops are fully ripened. God’s plans and purposes will always come to pass in due time. His promises do not fail, and His word does not return void.
He knows the longings of our hearts and He planted many of those longings there. However, make no mistake. God will harvest no crop before its time.
If you are longing for the harvest of promises God planted in your heart, trust the Lord of the harvest to bring forth all things in the right season.
Isaiah 55:10-11 – “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
All Bible verses, unless otherwise attributed, are from the English Standard Version (ESV).
Until Next Week
©2016 Katherine Walden
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