Dec 04 2008
Now and Then
The tendency to prefer an immediate reward that is lesser, over a delayed reward that is greater, is an example of hyperbolic discounting. You might think that people would always want, “more,” but it just isn’t so. Often times people want the sweetness of something right now instead of waiting for the much greater return. Try bargaining with a three year old who wants a cookie an hour before dinner. Offer him 1 cookie now, or 3 after he finishes his food and see if he doesn’t go for the proverbial, “bird in the hand.” But that’s a child, an adult would make better choices wouldn’t they? Ever see these places that offer tax services where you walk out with, (a slightly reduced), immediate tax refund? They thrive every year. How about the outfits that offer to cash out your installment payments so that you can have all your money now? There is a market for them or they wouldn’t be in business.
Even Adam caved in when faced with the choice of tasty fruit now instead of God’s greater plan later. This is a temptation we all struggle with. Some do it better than others, and many probably do it better than I. Not always, but there are some situations that promise an outcome that I have a hard time waiting for. Money? Not so much, I’ve gotten used to not having a lot of cash. I’ve never had a hard time waiting for Christmas morning, but put me in a place like Nineveh and I’m under the vine with Jonah. I want to see the wrath fall, as long as it’s on them and not me. So I get driven to Scripture at the prodding of a well placed word from someone, knowing that it was really God who put that word in my ear.
“Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.” Knowing that what goes around, comes around, doesn’t entirely remove the human urge to want to be there to see it, “come around.” It is all too easy to want to see the failings of those who we perceive to have wronged us, but we must leave room for God’s vengeance. I find situations where I know that the one person is clearly acting outside of God’s Word, and because at that one moment I am not, I want to see fire fall from Heaven to consume them.
Why is it that when we feel that way, we seem to forget that at the very next moment, the roles could be reversed and it could be us who is the offender, instead of the offended. We can stand before a door that we feel certain that God has opened for us and just as we are about to step through He says, “Hold up, not yet!” We say, “But God, this is the perfect time! Not only can I have what I have seen you prepare for me, but I also get to see the demise of my enemy as I move forward to greener fields!” There is a wickedness in that; that is not of God. We have to stop and wait. Just as we sometimes ask for too small a blessing when God has in mind to give us more; it could be that, though it is not for our enjoyment, God is allowing our enemy a bit more rope before he throws the end over the gallows and makes it fast.
Satan is behind the desire to see those we think of as being against us, fail. It is our human nature, the sin nature, that delights in seeing the crushing of our foes. “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up on wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31. It is a beautiful thing when Scripture speaks directly to a situation. When God says, “Not yet,” it can be hard to accept, even though we know that His plan is best, we still tend to want that immediate gratification. We can see the benefit of a particular course of action and at the same time know that our hands have been temporarily tied. Perhaps it’s a better job, a move to a new city, a different relationship, it could be a lot of things but the thing is, it has to wait.
We sure seem to get tired of these lessons in patience! Knowing the will of God and resigning to His timing is a lifelong process of adjustment. Like when you first understand the game of bowling and having picked out the perfect ball you stand ready to deliver only to have someone say, “STOP.” You don’t see why you have to wait but someone else knows that without the right shoes, (those lovely tri-color numbers), you can damage the alley and even hurt yourself. As we stand at the head of the path that God has laid for us, we don’t want to damage the course we are about to travel, nor do we want to start out injured, we have to trust that God knows more about this than we do.
When the ice begins to break, when the permission is granted for us to proceed, things start to feel more right. Where there may have been a doubt, it is cleared up; where we once had a little chaos in the rear corners of our mind, peace has replaced it. Problems that we may not have even seen before, appear in the form of resolved issues while the hidden benefits of the waiting process make themselves known. We must develop our ability to trust. It isn’t a natural thing for us to trust because we have been so damaged by the world which rages around us that we have come to expect the worst; “Murphy’s Law.” But God doesn’t work that way. God has made promises in His Word and if there’s one thing you can depend on, it’s that God keeps His promises.
When we have trust issues, they are OUR issues. God is absolutely faithful to His Word and His faithfulness is not dependant on our ability to trust. When Peter began to sink beneath the waves, it was a failing of his own trust, not because Jesus couldn’t sustain him. It is the same with us. If we ever begin to mistrust the things God tells us in the Bible, it isn’t because they are any less true, it’s because of a fundamental weakness in us that allows doubt to enter in. That’s when we need to focus on Jesus Christ. All Peter needed to do was look to Jesus and he rose to the surface, and so can we. It doesn’t matter how badly we might backslide in our confidence or how sure we might think we are of the action to take, we need to turn our face to Jesus and wait for Him to lift us up.
“The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.” Lamentations 3:25. God wants to be good to us, to bless us. Why? Because it is to His glory that we should be an example of His grace and power before the world! When we witness to others by our testimony, they hear our words, but when we carry the blessings of the Lord into our witness, there is power in it. It is one thing to say that God is good, but it is an entirely different matter to be able to show someone the gift of God working in our lives. With practice, the frustration of learning to wait on God’s timing gets easier. We may fall back into thinking that we know better, but when we recognize that God has put a roadblock before us, we are reminded that it is the Lord that calls the shots. We have to train ourselves to wait for perfection instead of rushing headlong into mediocrity. We can force our way into something that is less than what God wants for us, or we can allow God to show the world, through the blessings in our lives, that when He blesses a life, it’s…
All for the Glory of Christ