flannelThere’s a reason patience is a virtue. It’s because it’s not fun.  In a world where anything can be at your fingertips immediately, when you can purchase something online and have it at your door in an hour, we have come to love the immediate.  I don’t even think this is a problem! I love the efficiency of it! The problem is when we let this love of the immediate creep into relationship with God. So often we tend to drift to the stories of immediate healing in scripture.  It’s awesome! Jesus tells a man to pick up his mat and walk. He instantly heals a woman with an issue of blood. Even Peter and John get in on the immediate action in Acts 3 when they heal the beggar in the awesome “Silver and Gold I do not have, but what I have I give to you. Stand up and walk!” moment.  These are awesome and possible with God! But what happens when God’s plan isn’t immediate?

I’ll be honest, my eyes were very much opened to this thought a week ago while I was reading my bible.  We do a thing at River Valley Church called SOAP (acronym for Scripture Observation Application Prayer), and we were in Genesis 1 & 2.  CONFESSION: I wasn’t expecting much from reading this.  I have read it countless times and could practically recite it to you.  Yet I love how God still shows me new truths and rocks my world over and over again with His Word.

Genesis 1 is the creation story.  You know, where God is speaking everything into existence, and I just always assumed that when He created the earth and the plants and trees He made it lush and beautiful.  That’s what my children’s bible and Veggie Tales told me! Then I stumbled across Genesis 2:5, “no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for God had not yet sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground…”  That’s right, my Sunday School teacher with her stellar flannelgraph had lied to me!

Once the devastation of that last sentence had passed, I realized something amazing about God: He didn’t just create the world then let it go, He created a PROCESS that would allow the earth to flourish! 

Too often we fall into the trap of wanting God to speak and change things immediately, but we can see that even from the beginning of time He’s created a process that ensures long term flourishing. The immediate is a possibility, but don’t discredit the process that God has laid out for you.