INSTA WORLD

Do we give God a chance to work in our lives? Or do we expect instant results? We live in the what I call the "INSTA syndrome", instant coffee, instant oatmeal, instant mash taters, instant everything. We want what we want, and we want it right now!

When a web page takes five seconds to load, we get upset. When we have to wait in line at the supermarket, we get irritated. And if we're in line at the bank behind an elderly person, we quickly forget that we will be old someday too unless we kill ourselves from our own impatience first.

Something to think about, your status in society reflects whether you have to wait or make others wait for you. The lower your “status”, the more you have to wait on other people. The most "important" people make others wait for them.

God is the most important being in the entire universe. He's at the top. So it stands to reason that all of us have to wait for Him. But that's not how we like it, so we get all worked up and try to hurry him along. When we don't give God a chance to work out a solution and insist on an immediate answer, you're telling Him to obey you, to hurry up because your way is best. Some people get through their entire life and never learn that lesson. They think that God is like their bell-boy.

Genesis tells us that God created everything in six days, and on the seventh day he rested. Don't you think this all-powerful being could have created everything in one day? Sure he could have! But God did not rush, and he won't allow us to rush him either. If you ask God to act in your life, you may try to impose a deadline on him. You may believe that the opportunity of a lifetime has come up, and if you don't get God's intervention right away, you'll miss it altogether.

Fortunately for us, God knows the future. In my own life, I have prayed those kinds of desperate prayers. God knew what was best for me, though, and looking back, I see the wisdom of his delay. And sometimes, what I thought was the opportunity of a lifetime would have, instead, turned out to be a lifetime of misery.

Many of us want a "drive-through" life, but nothing worthwhile can be done in a rush. Fast food may be fast, but it's certainly not the tastiest, most nutritional meal you can eat. If we don't give God a chance to do things his way, in his time, we risk stepping outside his will ... into failure. When you give God a chance--both time and opportunity to work--you're obeying him, and obedience always brings blessings. So don’t give up, take it slow and give God time to work.

Remember He who began a great work in you, will be faithful to complete it.