How Long?

by GRIERSON, G. | Category: N/a | May 2006

The question, "How long?" is often asked in frustration. We don’t normally like being asked to wait. Sometimes we are concerned because we know that a long wait can have serious consequences, like waiting for a vital surgical operation to take place. At other times it can just be highly frustrating, like waiting in a traffic jam when we have an important appointment. Usually, when we are forced to wait, it is because we have no choice, and no matter how much we fume and complain, it doesn’t make any difference. We live in a generation that increasingly doesn’t like to wait. Advertisements promote the idea that we can have what we want now, and pay for it later. Waiting takes patience, and that commodity seems to be in increasingly short supply in our modern society.

To be a farmer, patience is essential. You cannot hurry growing things. To produce crops in harmony with nature takes time. The Bible speaks about the farmer waiting for the harvest, being patient until it has received the necessary seasonal rainfall (Jas.5:7). The Book of Ecclesiastes speaks about there being a season and a time for every purpose under heaven, and about a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted (3:1-2). There is no hurrying up of the seasons, and the wise farmer knows that you just have to wait patiently for harvest time to come.

It is only through the discipline of waiting, sometimes having to go through trials at the same time, that the virtue of patience will be developed in us.

How patient our Lord Jesus was, as He waited God’s time during all those long years in Nazareth. And how patiently He endured the cross, and despised the shame; His divine attributes of patience and meekness gloriously shining out in that Perfect Man, as He underwent suffering at the hands of lawless men. God wants to work those same attributes of patience and meekness into the fabric of our lives, too, as we seek to follow Jesus as Lord and grow more like Him.

In our personal experience we might be brought into situations where we are forced to cry out to God, "How long?" We are not alone in making this cry. David, in the extremity of his circumstances, cried:

‘How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever?

How long will You hide Your face from me?

How long shall I take counsel in my soul,

Having sorrow in my heart daily?

How long will my enemy be exalted over me?’ (Ps.13:1-2)

Trials were pressing down on David, just as if he was being crushed in an olive or wine press. He was walking through the valley of the shadow of darkness, where there seemed to be no light, no relief. Do you ever feel like that? His cry to God did not imply any lack of faith on his part. Indeed he finished his psalm on a note of trust, courage and joy, for he was enabled to look ahead to the end of the matter, just as his Lord would do in a later day and in a vastly darker situation. David was learning the cost of his obedience to his God through the things he was suffering, and at the same time God was working in his life. We are reminded of James’s words: ‘My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing’ (1:2-4).

We may find ourselves in situations where we too cry out, "How long?" It is not wrong to do so. The Lord understands. In fact, He is the only One who does fully understand. But this experience can be used to produce in us that necessary patience which comes from waiting on God for deliverance. We all, as believers, live in a world that is suffering (Rom.8:22): groaning and travailing while it awaits its deliverance. In that day of deliverance we, too, will be delivered from the bondage of corruption and receive the redemption of our bodies. This is a tremendous hope: something to look forward to with joyful anticipation. But we need patience. The apostle Paul writes, ‘For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance (patience, ESV)’ (Rom.8:24,25).

James also gives us reassurance when he writes, ‘You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand’ (5:8). There is a coming day when all things will be put right and faith in God will be vindicated. Faith and hope will give way to sight, and sorrow will be turned into joy. Then every "How long?" shall be answered.

GRIERSON, G. | May 2006
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