Waiting can be hard. If we are honest, most of us do not like to wait. Just take a good look around. We have “fast” food restaurants, “express” check outs and “same day” deliveries to name a few. Waiting is a struggle for many of us. Yet, as Christians, we spend much of our lives waiting. We eagerly wait for Jesus to return and present us to the Father in a beautiful place called heaven.

Waiting is nothing new. Throughout scripture we see examples of God’s people waiting for some particular promise from God. For example, God made a promise to Abraham that from his seed would come a great nation (Gen. 12:1-5). Unfortunately for Abraham, 25 years passed before Abraham and Sarah conceived and gave birth to Isaac (Gen. 21:1-7). And what about the faithful spies who brought back a good report of the land? Joshua and Caleb spent 40 years wandering in a wilderness waiting to cross the Jordan River to inherit the Promised Land (Num. 14:26-35). God’s people never have been exempt from periods of waiting.

As we find ourselves waiting, we might push those promises out of our minds and live as if the promises of God may never happen. Abraham became impatient and tried to take over when he produced an offspring through Sarai’s servant, Hagar (Gen. 16). After trying to accomplish the promise on his own, Abraham found out Hagar’s son was not the son of promise, but that a son would still be born. He only needed to wait. Joshua and Caleb could have become restless and tried to take matters into their own hands during their 40 years of wandering.

Right now we find ourselves in a period of waiting. And while each passing day may cause us to feel as though God’s promises are not being fulfilled, let’s remember God is not on our time table. He is in control and knows exactly what He is doing. While we may not understand the wait, we must trust Him and know that when He does finally fulfill those promises we all long for, those promises will have been well worth our wait, just as they were for Abraham, Joshua and Caleb.