When I was still growing up, well, how about we just rewind to when I was in college. I did my research in a library by sourcing through magazines and books using a card catalogue. I actually knew people's phone numbers beyond dialing, "Mom." And if I didn't know someone's phone number, I called information or I looked it up in either the White Pages or the Yellow Pages.
I typed my first 10 page research paper on a typewriter. I was considered lucky on my hall because I had one of those typewriters that could erase & re-type. Eventually, my roommate let me use her word processor. Amazing!
There was no fast forwarding through commercials. We looked up movie times in the paper. If I tried to call my then boyfriend, Derick, while his mom was talking to him on his WALL phone, this annoying beep-beep sound started up declaring the line "busy."
My the world has changed. (And I sound like an old woman...barefoot, in the snow, uphill, BOTH ways...)
My 11-year-old is in competitive swimming. His practices are held at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Recently, the school slowed down it's Wifi to combat the number of folks pirating movies and music.
It.is.driving.me.crazy.
It takes longer than 10 seconds for me to get anything up on the screen of my phone! The outrage.
It is very human (and very Pentecostal) to expect God to hand me instant healing. I should pray in the altar, with faith, and all should be well from that moment on in my heart. Except I found that He doesn't do things the way I'd like Him to.
Unlike the rest of the world, unlike my own surburbian world, He is not in a hurry.
From looking at the stories in the Bible, God is as much into the process or the journey of a life as He is into the end result. Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born. Moses was 80 when he led the Israelites out of Egypt and into the wilderness.
Going to the ultimate story, the Gospel story, God spent about 4,000 years building up to the moment when Christ would appear on earth.
It took me 20 years to get through my depression. God wasn't frustrated with me, either, because I wasn't figuring it out. He knew from the beginning the exact date my depression would start AND the exact moment it would end. He was not in hurry. He was not anxious. He didn't bite His nails or twirl His hair or wring His hands.
He had patience.
"'My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,' says the Lord.
'And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine'." Isaiah 55:8 (NLT)
I wish I would have patience like Him. But He is slowly, ever so slowly building it. He's good like that.
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