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“But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. 9The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.”
–– 2 Peter 3:8-9
Hasten. It is not a word common to contemporary conversation. You won’t hear Junior saying, Hasten to my assistance, Father, for I have not yet learned to tie my shoelace. Yet, the verb, hasten, is an apt descriptor for the response we seek from a world yet to meet our expectations. Hasten, hurry up, get a move on, get the lead out, hustle, scurry, scramble, step on it!! Whether we are looking to God or monitoring our Amazon order, our patience is shaved to thin with alarming quickness. With our expectations, we are the parent impatient with the child –– Come here … NOW! We want it yesterday whether we’re looking for a test result, an answered prayer, an opening in a traffic jam, a cast removed, the resolution to a problem, or a response to a text. We are regularly mimicking the Psalmist, “How long, O Lord?” “Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me.” “I think of God, and I moan; I meditate, and my spirit faints.” “O God, why do you cast us off forever?” Urgency as a lifestyle is exhausting, making us perpetually cross at the world and all who live in it.
I thank the Lord that God is wired differently. Our impatience with God is not the mirror image of God’s approach to us. A frequently repeated affirmation in Scripture is: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” In a sermon in Antioch, Paul recounts the Lord’s deliverance of Israel: “For a period of about forty years He put up with them in the wilderness.” Forty years! That’s patience, particularly when compared to the steaming of my ears if I have to wait two light cycles to get through an intersection. Or how about the angst you feel when those three dots are flashing below your text? Come on! Hurry up! Hasten to my expectations!
Perhaps among the most important prayers we can offer in this digital age of instant gratification is this –– Loving God, upon whose patience we depend, teach us the discipline of patience, for our lack of it drives us into the clutches of anxiety. Slow our pulse. Take the edge off our blood pressure. Help us to learn the graces to be discovered in the waiting. Amen.
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