When there is a Delay, I Can Trust In God’s Timing

In review of Psalm 37:7-8 it says, “Rest in the Lord, wait patiently for him to act …. Don’t fret and worry — it only leads to harm.”

Bottom Line:

Rest and trust the Lord. Patiently wait for him to act. Don’t let it bother you when things seem to go better for others (even the sinful ones). Being bothered or inpatient can only lead to you to take actions that will end up harming you.

What this means to me:

I am to take rest in and trust the Lord to act at the right time. I should never let it bother me when those who do evil or sinful things seem to be prospering more than myself. Letting this bother me or taking my own actions will only lead me to sin myself.

As I pursue God’s dream for my life, I’ll inevitably run into delays. What I’m learning is that God uses those delays to prepare and test me so that I can face whatever is coming in the next phase of my faith journey.

I know that I tend to worry when I get delayed. Not reaching a goal or achieving a plan can stress me out. One tendency of mine is to complain. I’ve get uptight. I guess this is natural. The Israelites, when God delayed their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, reacted the same way: “On the way the people lost their patience and spoke against God and Moses. They complained” (Numbers 21:4b-5a GNT).

The Israelites’ complaining and fretting were the sins that kept them out of the Promised Land. No matter what God did for them, they found something to gripe about. They had no water, so God provided water. Then they had no food, but when God provided food, they complained about the food they got. It’s easy to gripe when we’re forced to wait. We wait, but then complain about it.

Proverbs 19:2 says, “Impatience will get you into trouble.” It’s frustrating to be in a hurry and find that God isn’t. I think I’m finally beginning to realize that God is never in a hurry! The Bible says a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day to God. He’s larger and greater than time. One of the most useless things I can do is to try and speed up God. I do this when I take matters into my own hands. I ultimately get myself into trouble by doing this.

As I get a dream from God and make the decision to go after it but then seem to be forced into God’s waiting room, I need to avoid trying to figure out ways of doing God’s dream on my own.

The Bible reminds me to trust God’s timing: “Rest in the Lord, wait patiently for him to act …. Don’t fret and worry — it only leads to harm” (Psalm 37:7-8 TLB).

Resting can be an act of faith. It means I’m waiting on God. When Jesus and the disciples were in a boat that was caught in a big storm, Jesus just kept sleeping through all the ruckus while the disciples freaked out. When they woke him up to ask, “Why are you sleeping?!” he responded, “Do you think God is going to let the boat sink with me in it?” By sleeping through the storm, Jesus was saying that we can trust God even in the middle of a storm.

When I face a storm, I tend to wake up at night and start to think and even fret about it. But now I can see that when I do that it means that I’m not living by faith. I’m not getting any sleep because I don’t really trust God to work it out. However God tells me, “Don’t fret. Remember I’m always with you, and trust my timing.”

In addition worry will only makes me miserable. So I’ll strive to stop worrying, and start trusting God to work in me and through me especially while I face a delay as I execute what I believe is his will.

Resting in the Lord can be difficult as I tend to run my life with little or no spare time. I feel like I should be doing something productive with all my waking hours. So resting often seems like wasting out on doing something productive. Delays are God’s way of building my faith muscle and my patience. I tend to want things at microwave rather than oven speed. Delays teach me to wait and trust in God. One thing I struggle with is it’s difficult to know how long I should wait,how much delay to endure. Stepping in and taking my own action occurs when I convince myself that I may need to push things along to make things happen. I can convince myself that I might have not understood God correctly and I need to take action.

As I consider what I’m studying about this morning, I think one thing I can do to know more about the right amount of time to wait is for me to continue to practicing being still so that I can hear from Him. I may not be getting the instructions or faith I need to wait because I’m not listening for God to speak to me. I think I’ll try to use some time on Saturday/Sunday mornings just to review his Word and then be quiet in God’s presence and allow him to speak to me. Overall, when there is a delay, I can trust in God’s timing to be right.