Time Waits For No One

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” –   Psalm 90:12.

Chico Xavier once said that “Though nobody can go back and make a new beginning… anyone can start over and make a new ending.”  In About Time, Tim had the ability to go back in time to make a new beginning. Hollywood can do that, we cannot.  Tim did not have to wait, we do. 

Most of us would rather do anything than wait. Some of us would rather do the wrong thing than wait. Still, a good part of our life is waiting. Waiting to graduate. Waiting for the right man or woman to come into our life. Waiting for a baby to be born. Waiting to hear if you got the job. Waiting for your prayers to be answered. 

Waiting is one of the hardest parts of the Christian life. Many of us are not very good at it. We often get frustrated waiting at the McDonald’s drive thru or behind a slow car on a two lane road. We need and want to get to the next place or the next thing. This mindset often carries over into our spiritual lives with us rushing to fix something rather than waiting on God.

Ecclesiastes 3 says ”For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.” God has a plan and a purpose for everything. The problem is not with God’s plan. The problem is we want to go to a closet, clench our fist and solve the problem by going back in time. The rest of us who can’t go back in time have trouble waiting because we don’t have all the details. From our perspective, we have everything figured out and we want God to move within our timeframe.

But God rarely does things according to our timeframe, and because of this we can easily get discouraged. If we aren’t careful, we’ll think He’s uncaring or mad at us. In the Gospels we see this happening to Mary and Martha while they are waiting on Jesus to come and heal their brother, Lazarus. When Jesus finally shows up, He is accused of taking too long.

Waiting on God means patiently looking to Him for what we need. David learned to “wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him.” (Psalms 62:5), and that “people, trust in him at all times. Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge.” (Psalms 62:8) 

We don’t like to wait. But sometimes God’s answer to us is simply, “Be patient and wait.” We can pray with David: “Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly.” (Psalms 5:3)  We can trust His response, even if it doesn’t come in the time we expect.

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you think that God has reason to be impatient with you? 
2. What are the main differences in situations when you are and are not patient? Do you think that patience comes naturally, i.e., you have it as a child, or is it something that is learned as you get older and more mature?
3. Psalm 37:34 [TLB) says,”Don’t be impatient for the Lord to act! Keep traveling steadily along his pathway and in due season he will honor you with every blessing, and you will see the wicked destroyed.” What does that mean to our lives today?
4. What can we do this week to become better at waiting on the Lord?