(7) Make no mistake, God is not mocked. A person will harvest what they plant. (8) Those who plant only for their own benefit will harvest devastation from their selfishness, but those who plant for the benefit of the Spirit will harvest eternal life from the Spirit. (9) Let’s not get tired of doing good, because in time we’ll have a harvest if we don’t give up.
Galatians 6:7-9 (CEB)
Hello Readers, hope all’s well. Time for another #shorts post.
Today I have a post about waiting, and working toward goals. It’s a topic I wrote about in May of last year actually. You can check out this post: Waiting on the LORD in a Fast-Paced World.
Being able to wait on the LORD is such an important character trait. What made me want to come back to this topic again is I was thinking the other day how many people in this world no longer understand that good things take time and effort. I too lacked that understanding, until recent years anyway.
This world and society we live in has conditioned us to not have patience. Everything is instant and convenient. As a result no one from any generation is unaffected. Everyone in this culture, from young to old, has grown used to expecting things to be instant and convenient. This is a problem that affects us all.
And it’s a big problem, a real problem. Very much so. Because the dreams and goals most worth achieving in this world take the longest time and the most effort. They aren’t achieved, created, or reached, etc., overnight. Not if it’s for real and bound to last, anyway. But the point is, if we can’t wait, then we’ll have a hell of a hard time achieving our big dreams in this life, if we even achieve them at all.
This topic was on my mind so much I just had to revisit it. I honestly see this loss of Patience—which affects everyone—as a serious issue of our times.
So let’s talk about it. But first, let’s revisit some of what I wrote in Waiting on the LORD in a Fast-Paced World. This segment is about how modern society has conditioned us to expect instant everything.
I Want it, and I Want it Now
This was another excellent point the missionary made. You know what a big part of our problem is?? Our world, our society. We don’t live in a society where we have to wait for much at all.
We have high speed internet. If we want to know something, we can Google it and get thousands of results in a second (whether the information is quality or not is a different story). We don’t have to wait for it, it’s all right there, available instantly. And with smartphones, we don’t even need to sit at a computer to access these things. All kinds of entertainment is right at our fingertips. We can use internet on the phone and enjoy this instant gratification wherever we go.
Living in a world where so much is available instantly with no wait has conditioned us to not be able to wait. That’s what the missionary said, and he’s right. We aren’t good at waiting anymore, because we don’t have to wait in our everyday life.
This is a really big problem if we stop and think about it. We’ve made waiting on the LORD so much more painful than it needs to be, because we now expect instant gratification and can’t wait for anything. We need to grow out of this mistaken attitude, because the LORD is not about instant gratification. He wants us to wait, work, train, and prepare for the blessings He has for us. The devil is the one who gives things instantly, with no wait. The LORD is different, and from our perspective, He takes His time.
We must never forget the simple fact that we don’t experience time like God does. […]
This conditioning we’ve all been affected by is a serious problem. Because the fact is, good things and big dreams take time and effort. We can’t have them right now, right when we want them. We have to work toward them; they’re not instant.
Baby Steps Get Us where We Want to Go
We have to take the long view if we want to reach a big dream. Big dreams are worth it, but we need to put the work in for them. This work happens bit by bit, little by little, every day. More than anything else it’s more about consistently working on something. The speed doesn’t matter—we already know starting out that a big dream will take a long time to reach.
So it’s not about speed, it’s about not giving up!! Baby steps will get us to our goal one day if we don’t stop taking those little steps.
There’s no big dream in this world (a business, a ministry, a family, etc.) that happens overnight. They aren’t instant. We can’t have them right when we want them. And this is why it’s so harmful that people of all ages are losing the ability to wait. When we lose Patience we’re also losing the ability to stick with something until the end, so we can see results.
And if we do achieve something overnight: BEWARE!! It’s probably the devil messing with us!!
I’ll come back to that in just a second, below.
Anyway, big dreams take time and effort. We have to wait for them. But we can also make the waiting meaningful and worthwhile. And we must. The whole time we’re waiting, we can be studying and preparing for what we want to receive. We can be walking with the LORD while working on ourselves and building ourselves up. The waiting doesn’t need to be a passive time. And it’s better if it’s not. It’s better if we pray to God about the dreams we want to reach while doing everything we can to get them done. There’s a whole lot we can do while we’re taking these little baby steps to our goal.
Make the Wait Worthwhile
If we ask for something in line with God’s Will, something good in His Eyes, we will receive it. This is written in 1 John 5:14-15.
(14) This is the confidence that we have in our relationship with God: If we ask for anything in agreement with his will, he listens to us. (15) If we know that he listens to whatever we ask, we know that we have received what we asked from him.
1 John 5:14-15 (CEB)
But that doesn’t mean we’ll receive it right away. God’s way is to prepare us for the blessing we’re asking for, so that we’ll be able to hold on to that blessing and not lose it. This means maturing us so we can handle a marriage, business, ministry, or whatever. Satan is the one who gives out “blessings” instantly. Because if we get something too early before we’re capable of handling it, we’ll lose it.
So the most important thing for us, then, while we do what we can to achieve our dreams, is to stay prayed up and continue bringing our requests to God. We need to keep praying to Him about what we want while also studying and working and preparing ourselves for it.
Waiting is never easy, but if we stay connected to God during our wait, the wait is easier to bear. Likewise, the wait is more painful if we’re disconnected from God and also waiting for something. Staying connected to God makes the waiting easier and more meaningful. Then our slow progress and journey becomes a Spiritual exercise.
(31) but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
Isaiah 40:31 (ESV)
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
And remember!! There are things we can and should be doing, while we wait. The waiting does not need to be a passive time. While we stay connected to God, we must also work on ourselves and prepare for the blessing, dream, or goal we want. This preparation could mean study, it could mean school, it could mean saving some money. It could mean a lot of things; we all have to examine our situation and figure that out.
But it’s on us to make our waiting time meaningful, fulfilling, and constructive for ourselves. If there’s anything we can do to prepare or get ready for what we want, let’s do it!! More important, let’s be sure to get closer to God during our waiting time. Then we’ll know our blessing really comes from God, when it comes, and we’ll Thank and Praise Him for it.
Anyway, I wrote this post because I was again thinking about how modern society has robbed us of our Patience for waiting. And this is so harmful, because the biggest dreams (the ones most worth it) take a long time and lots of work. We need Patience and Fortitude (tenacity) to reach those dreams. But if we stick with the LORD we can do it, with Him!!
If we put a little bit of work in consistently, day after day without giving up, we will one day reap a good harvest of all the effort we put in. Sound familiar?? Of course; it’s from Galatians 6. Take a look:
(7) Make no mistake, God is not mocked. A person will harvest what they plant. (8) Those who plant only for their own benefit will harvest devastation from their selfishness, but those who plant for the benefit of the Spirit will harvest eternal life from the Spirit. (9) Let’s not get tired of doing good, because in time we’ll have a harvest if we don’t give up.
Galatians 6:7-9 (CEB)
That’s it for #shorts Part 45.
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