Christians need to continually realize our littleness before our great, wise God. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9 Yes, we do sometimes ask ourselves WHY we need to wait. With humility, trustfulness, reverence, and maturity, we consider the reasons why waiting is important.

Waiting can develop in us a proper attitude and character growth in order to properly receive our blessings. Just as a little girl who gets too many presents, she may not appreciate what she has or know how to use them. A one year old child would not appreciate a cooking pot as much as a married woman.  The Lord knows us, and we need to trust him. “O Lord you have searched me and known me. You know my down sitting and mine uprising you understand my thoughts afar off.” Psalm 139:1,2

It is possible that we are expecting the wrong kind of blessing. “You ask and receive not because you ask amiss that you may consume it upon your lusts.” James 4:3 We do not want selfish prayers. We always want the Lord’s will to be done in our lives. Waiting provides a period to search our hearts. What are my motives for wanting this blessing? Is my motive pure before God?

In the big picture of human events, we may be praying for world peace while trouble in increasing. It is not God’s time for peace until Jesus, the prince of peace, takes full control of Earth’s affairs. Jews for centuries prayed, “Next year in Jerusalem.” It was not God’s time to answer that prayer until 1967 when they gained the old city of Jerusalem. God’s timing always provides the wisest, biggest blessing.

We are to be in a hopeful, trustful attitude as we wait. “Wait on the Lord be of good courage (not discouraged) and he shall strengthen your heart, wait I say on the Lord.” Psalm 27:14 

A well-loved Christian writer has well said: “Time is an important element in all God’s plans: we are not, therefore, to be disappointed when the test of endurance is applied while the blessings we crave tarry long. God took time to frame the world and to fit it for human habitation; time to give the world its necessary experience with evil; time to prepare for the advent of Christ as the world’s Redeemer; time for the preparation of the Church to share in His glorious reign; and time must be allowed for the shaping and adjusting of the individual affairs of His people. God has not forgotten when the answers to our prayers seem to tarry long. He who heeds the sparrow’s fall and numbers the very hairs of our heads is not indifferent to the faintest call or the smallest necessity of His humblest child.”

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