Waiting is part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And it is hard. We are grateful that God has given us His word, filled with promises and pictures that sustain our hope. But if we are honest, our hearts often cry out, “How long, O Lord?” Why can’t He pick up the pace? Why is God seemingly so slow?
In pondering those questions, I was helped by my friend (and local Charlottesville pastor), Claude Atcho. In his new book, Rhythms of Faith: A Devotional Pilgrimage through the Church Year (an autographed copy is in the church library), Claude addresses the slowness of God in his reflections on the second Sunday of Advent. He writes:
Advent is the time to think about the slowness of God. You’ve probably thought about God’s holiness and goodness, but have you adequately meditated on his slowness? In this season we dare to vocalize the cry of our hearts that usually remain unspoken, stuffed into silence by religious etiquette: “Why so slow, Lord?”
Among other responses to this question, one essential answer is that God is slow because God is love. Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama writes, “Love has its speed…It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed.” Koyama observes that Jesus operates at the slow speed of love. God’s promises seem slow because he is expanding the borders of his family; he is so active in giving mercy to the ungodly that he wants to take his time, bringing more and more people into Christ’s saving embrace.
Is this just warm, fuzzy preacher talk? Not at all. Listen to God’s words through the apostle Peter:
Do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. (2 Peter 3:8-10)
In the saving promise of God, slowness and suddenness collide. What else would you expect from the God who was willing to metaphorically sprout from a dying stump and to literally gestate, wait, and grow in a woman’s womb?
Saints, all of us are waiting for something, most likely multiple somethings. And it is okay to express to our Heavenly Father that the waiting is long and that we get discouraged because, from our human vantage point, it doesn’t appear that He is doing anything. But let us also pray that our Father would give us eyes of faith to see how He is at work and hearts of faith to trust in His perfect will and timing. And let us continue to encourage one another as we await the coming of the Lord.
