I do not know about you, but I pray daily that the Lord would return quickly. Yet sometimes I wonder if he ever will return – at least in my lifetime. I just really want to see this evil world come to a conclusion.

Some Musings on the Difference between My Clock and God’s Clock

We are very impatient people here in the West. We want instant everything. We want everything and we want it now. Christians are not immune to this way of doing things. They too can demand that everything happens immediately. For example, they can expect instant Christian maturity or they can demand instant answers to their prayers.

But God is on his own timetable, not ours. He does things when they need to be done, not when we think they should be done. So we have need for some patience here, among other things. That means not always rushing around, but actually letting God set the timetable and not us.

And we need to learn how to wait on God – the gist of which is just that: waiting. Some famous passages come to mind here about this:

Wait for the Lord;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the Lord!
Psalm 27:14

I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry.
Psalm 40:1

But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31

The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
Lamentations 3:25

Consider the issue of prayer and what seems like unanswered prayer, or a long delay in getting some sort of answer. I do not know about you, but I pray daily that the Lord would return quickly. Yet sometimes I wonder if he ever will return – at least in my lifetime. I just really want to see this evil world come to a conclusion.

I guess I am rather like those talked about in 2 Peter 3. There Peter discusses scoffers, and he says this in verses 4-10:

They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But 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…

I hate to say it, but sometimes I sorta think and feel the same way as the scoffers do: “All things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” It seems the evil and suffering and misery and pain just keep on coming – relentlessly. I just want it all to come to an end and I wish God would hurry things up a bit!

But plenty of prayers that we offer up to God may seem to be getting nowhere fast in terms of some kind of answer. Often we have to wait quite a while before we see God acting on our behalf. One passage which speaks to this and is rather mysterious (I will need to write a separate article on it one day), is what we find in Daniel 10:10-14:

And behold, a hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. And he said to me, “O Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you.” And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling. Then he said to me, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.”

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