Awesome Things Take Time

Great and awesome things take time. This is an important principle; one worth learning.

Many Examples

There are many examples in the Bible. We learn that Noah worked on the ark for a hundred and twenty years before the flood. I’m sure that the people around him thought that he was a crazy person. Why was he building this large boat so far away from water? It had never rained. They didn’t even know what rain was until after it started. Yet, soon after Noah had completed the ark and filled it with his family and two of every living creature, it started to rain, and it continued for 40 days and nights.

Sarah desired to have a child, but it didn’t happen until she was ninety years old. We know that she and Abraham got discouraged. God had promised them a child and a descendent, from whom all people of the earth would be blessed, but it didn’t happen right away. So, they took matters into their own hands. Sarah instructed Abraham, her husband, to sleep with one of her servants, Hagar, and she bear a son, Ishmael. This son would become the father of all Arab people. The conflict between the descendants of Ishmael and the children of Israel is still ongoing today.

In the household of Abraham, the conflict began almost immediately. Soon after Isaac was born, Sarah said to Abraham, “Send the slave girl and her son away.”  At one sad point, Abraham had to kick Hagar and Ishmael out of the camp to fend for themselves in the wilderness.

“Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba.”

—Genesis 21:14

Instant Success

Awesome things take time. In our culture, we have come to expect instant success, instant healing, instant results. We think if it doesn’t happen right now, God is absent; he is not working in our lives. This is why I love the lyrics to the song “Waymaker” by Michael W. Smith. “Even when I don’t see it, you’re working. Even when I don’t feel it, you’re working. You never stops, never stop working.”

There is a promise in Jeremiah that we should all memorize.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

—Jeremiah 29:11

God has a plan for awesome things in your life. He has a plan to prosper you, to give you hope and a future. 

Joy Leaped Inside Me

I visited Rochester University this past week with two young men from church. For me, it was an amazing feeling standing with them in the lobby of the Richardson Center. God allowed me to see the hope and future that he has in store for them. Standing there together, talking with the college advisor, I saw it. Joy leaped in my heart so much so that I had to interrupt the advisor to give one of the young men a fist bump.

Even so, I know from experience that it won’t happen overnight, not even in a month or two, but it will happen. I know they will explore new things, meet new people, and God will open up doors of opportunity they can’t even imagine right now.

So, many examples, awesome things take time. Trust God to bring it to pass. I know it can be difficult, and, like Sarah, we can become discouraged, but keep your focus on his promises. Don’t give in to the sin of sex with the servant girl. God is working things out for your good; trust him. He is rarely early, but never late.

 “Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.

—Psalm 37:5, NKJV

Copyright © 2023 Chuck Locklear

Also, see Victorious.