It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. Lamentations 3:26
Some things take time and just can’t be rushed. Even though it is not an easy thing to be patient, the Bible tells us it is good to hope and wait quietly for the Lord’s salvation. Whenever you do something in obedience to God’s Word, it is only natural to expect that God would immediately respond and reward you for your faithfulness and fidelity toward Him and His Word.
Sowing and reaping, however, is not always so cut and dried, as it were. If you like the look of those classic saguaro cactus found in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and would like to grow you some, you will need to learn this lesson of hoping and waiting very well. For the first ten years, it will grow about an inch or an inch and a half. It won’t grow one of those cute branches until it’s about sixteen years old. Then, it will only grow about an inch a year. They have beautiful flowers so you will probably be hoping to see some of them. Just wait, it will get around to bearing flowers — after about sixty years! The saguaro can live to be one hundred and fifty and even two hundred years old, growing to as much as sixty feet tall and weighing over two tons.
There are plenty of examples in God’s creation of beautiful, even magnificent things that take time to grow and mature and bear fruit. These things can’t be rushed; it takes however long it takes and all you can do is hope and wait!
It can be like that with children as well. It seems like you care for them day after day with no apparent growth or change and then one day, like the Chinese bamboo, they sprout up seemingly overnight. Wasn’t it only yesterday when they were babies? And now you suddenly find yourself seeing them eye to eye (or maybe even looking up to them!). After years of faithfully planting seeds, watering, weeding and nurturing, you begin to see the fruit coming forth and you understand the value of hoping and waiting.
God is at work in your life. If you are His child you can be sure of that fact. Yet, the work that He is doing may not be evident at the moment. That’s where hope comes in. You do not hope for what you already have or for what already is, you hope for what you cannot yet see and what is yet to be. And, while you are hoping you are waiting. This waiting is not the anxious, impatient sort of waiting; it’s waiting quietly. Another way of putting it is that you are waiting in faith because of your assurance of God’s love for you.
It has been said that, “a watched pot never boils”. That is, of course not true. When you put sufficient heat to a pot of water, it will eventually boil, whether you are watching it or not. The water is not affected by you watching it but you are. Instead of waiting quietly in hope being sure that the water will come to a boil, you are consumed with the process and the question of the water’s ability to eventually boil. God will take care of boiling water and growing cactus and growing children. It doesn’t matter whether you are watching or not. God’s plan for your life is great, but it’s not instantaneous. It’s time to hope and wait!
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