Often I find that my patience with God is short lived. Not the sort of patience like I lose with my daughter or my wife when I erupt because things aren't going my way or they're not getting it. Actually, it's more like losing patience with my father. He, as long as I can remember, though I've heard he wasn't always this way, is very calculated in his approach to what words he uses. I mean extremely calculated. There would be moments when I was in high school and we would have a “discussion” because of something I was doing wrong and he would have had most of the day to think about what he was going to say – and he'd say it right up front in the discussion. Then I would immediately respond passionately. Then we'd sit there. And wait. And he would process and calculate and try to figure out the right words to use to say. And it would drive me nuts! Then I grew up and understood what he was striving for...[cause I turned out just like him!]

In his book describing his experiences with God, Habakkuk is at quite a loss as to why God is allowing the evil ones of the world at that time to rule over the Israelites. He takes several paragraphs to voice his complaints, his questions and concerns - and then he says, "I will stand and wait. I will look to see what response God has to my complaint. Then the Lord prefaces his response with this: “The revelation awaits an appointed time...though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”

Habakkuk doesn't tell us how long he had to wait for the initial response, but I would guess that it might not have been an immediate thing. But it's not that God is calculating his words, trying to figure out the correct response to get his way with us. It's much greater than our ways of manipulation. Instead, we have to realise that God is greater than all time – nothing like our time restrains him. But he does work with in it at moments, as he says to Habakkuk, “The revelation awaits an appointed time.” So as I continue to ask for a drummer, or a way for restoration to take place, I will stand and wait. Though it lingers it will certainly come and not delay. As much of a hypocrisy that seems, how much more is the grace of God, on which I bank my eternity in? There is no greater true thing than our God and his ways.

What are you waiting for? Are you persistent in your requests? And do we really trust that God is the great Provider?