God, you are taking too long.
When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “ Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” Exodus 32:1
Have you seen those videos of parents leaving out candy for their kids and telling them to wait until they get back to eat it? Some of the kids exhibit great patience and they wait until their parents get back to indulge but the majority of kids cannot wait to taste the sweet treat. If I am honest, I would probably be more like the kids who couldn’t wait than the ones who could.
One of the most challenging lessons for me to learn is patience. It is one of those words that often follows with eye rolls and big sighs. My mom would tell me all the time that I needed to be careful when I prayed for patience because God would always come through with a trying situation in order to test my patience so that I could grow. I remember one time when I was in college, I prayed for patience during my morning quiet time and what followed was a day filled with interruptions and plans changing. The Lord answered that prayer but not in the way that I thought he would, and better yet not in the way that I wanted.
The Israelites found themselves in a similar situation as they were waiting on Moses to come down from Mount Sinai. Moses has brought the people out of slavery and lead them into safety. Now, God called him to meet with him individually so that he could give him instructions for their new lifestyle. While Moses was meeting with God, the Israelites had grown impatient. They could not wait to hear what God had told Moses, so they tried to take things into their own hands. They built an altar of their own so that they didn’t have to wait for Moses to get back. If you know this story, you know that this did not end well. God was furious that the Israelites did this. In his anger, he called them corrupt and stiff-necked people.
It could be easy to say that we would have never done this. We would have never tried to take things into our own hands. God was establishing guidelines for the Israelites to live by so that they could become a great nation; the nation that God would use to establish his covenant. But in the moment, all they could think about was how long Moses was taking and they got impatient. They wanted what they wanted, when they wanted, and how they wanted. Moses was not acting according to their timeline.
As I was reading about their reaction, I thought about how often I react this way to God. I spend time in prayer asking God to give me an answer and after a few days, I get impatient. I stop asking God and I try to find the answer myself either by creating my own answer to the question or asking other people what they think. Seeking godly counsel is not bad, but it cannot replace the counsel of God. If we are spending more time talking to our friends about the situation than in prayer with our Father about it, then we will miss how God wants to answer us. We will only hear what we want to hear or what our friends tell us to do.
If the Israelites knew that God was answering their prayer and giving Moses instructions that were for their good, they might have waited. They might not have taken matters into their own hands. This applies to us too. God may be working in areas of our life that we cannot see right now. We do not need to assume he is being quiet when we do not hear him. He may be up to something so good, it is just not time yet. I would hate to miss something incredible that God is trying to do by getting impatient and moving forward with my own plan.
The key to patience is not mastering flexibility or being okay with all of life’s inconveniences. Patience is rooted in trusting the righteousness and sovereignty of God. If we truly believe that he knows best and we rely on his ability to provide for us exactly what we need then patience will flow naturally. What seems to happen when I find myself impatient is that I am misunderstanding the control that I have of my life. The reality is that I have little to no control of what happens in this life and that stinks but it is true. But when I think that I control every single circumstance that I encounter, I end up irritated when things don't go my way. When I realize that God’s plan will always end with his glory and my good, there is a new sense of patience that I get to experience.
I will leave you with a Psalm that has been encouraging to my heart as I navigate the period of waiting.
I remain confident of this: I will se the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Psalm 27:13-14
