Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Waiting on The Lord

Psalm 27:14 (NIV)
14 Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

So often we are in a hurry. We want to see things done quickly. We want an answer now. Yet The Bible tells us to wait on The Lord in strength and faith.




An article in The Boston Globe claims that our "demand for instant results is seeping into every corner of our lives." The need for instant gratification is not new, but our expectation of "instant" has become faster. The article states:

Retailers are jumping into same-day delivery services. Smartphone apps eliminate the wait for a cab, a date, or a table at a hot restaurant. Movies and TV shows begin streaming in seconds. But experts caution that instant gratification comes at a price: It's making us less patient …

We've come to expect things so quickly that researchers found people can't wait more than a few seconds for a video to load. One researcher examined the viewing habits of 6.7 million internet users. How long were subjects willing to be patient? Two seconds. After that they started abandoning the site. After five seconds, the abandonment rate is 25 percent. When you get to 10 seconds, half are gone." The results offer a glimpse into the future. As Internet speeds increase, people will be even less willing to wait for that cute puppy video. The researcher, who spent years developing the study, worries someday people will be too impatient to conduct studies on patience. [Christopher Muther, "Instant gratification is making us perpetually impatient," The Boston Globe (2-2-13)]


The Apostle James wrote to us saying, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”


When we hurry we might miss some of the opportunities God has in store for us, but when we are patient we see all that He has planned.

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