Monday, May 18, 2015

TIME IS OF NO EFFECT

'But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day...' 2 Peter 3:8

There was a joke about this verse. If a day is like a thousand years to the Lord, then a million dollars must be like a penny to Him. So someone once asked God 'Oh Lord, could you please give me a penny?' And God replied 'Wait a second...' 

Well, it certainly wasn't funny to me if I knew that I had to wait that long for a promise to be fulfilled in my life. I used to dislike seeing this verse while I was in my waiting journey. I didn't like the fact that this verse was telling me to be patient for the Lord is not slow in fulfilling His promise. Because God is timeless, He is outside of time so He is not constrained by time. But we are. And the Lord knows we cannot afford to wait a thousand years for a promise to come to pass. He shows mercy on us by cutting short the waiting times in many instances. Even so, sometimes I still find the waiting unbearable. 

I guess all this while God has been teaching me about time, patience and waiting. Nobody likes to wait but waiting is really part and parcel of our life. Looking back on hindsight, I found that the waiting usually wouldn't harm us; its effect was to cause us to grow in faith, with a greater revelation of God. Heng is stronger in this aspect. He once told me that time no longer mattered to him. He believed that once God has given us the promise, it was already a done deal. Through the long years of waiting, I didn't think his faith wavered, except maybe when he saw me so disappointed and weary of waiting. 

Recently I read this book by Jesse Duplantis and he said that time means nothing to him anymore. If he is believing by faith for something and it happens quickly, fine. If it doesn't happen quickly, that's also fine. He will never let time defeat him. Time will not make him misjudge the God he serve. There are people in the world who can be relied upon to do almost anything except to wait! Waiting destroys them every time but it should not. 

No seed takes longer to grow than the seed sown in the soil of human hearts. Human nature does not want to humble itself in prayer and it does not want to wait on anything but God requires these things. We need to fertilise our human nature with His nature. We are going to learn that since time cannot stop the Word of God from coming to pass, we shouldn't let it discourage us or make us give up on our faith. God is faithful. He will do what He said in His word. 

Besides, since God is outside of time, He can also accelerate time and restore the years the locusts have eaten. He can cause you to achieve so much more in a few short years than you could ever do so in your own strength. He can redeem your days. Oftentimes, when we reached the end of our waiting and received our miracle, we would usually find that God didn't let us wait so long after all. It was only in the uncertainty of waiting, wondering and wandering if God would come through for us that we beame weary. But if we keep our eyes on His faithfulness, we will soar like wings on eagles during the wait. The waiting will not wear us down but strengthen us instead. 

So don't give up. Make up your mind, set your face like flint to cross that finish line and receive your manifestation. Then give God all the glory! 

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