It’s hard to wait. We have to, but we hate it! The three-word complaint: “I can’t wait!” is often on our tongues and frequent to our ears. Something in us wants what we want now.

Learning how to wait is a skill we have to learn early in life. If we don’t learn it, we’re in lots of trouble as we get older. The odd thing is, lots of older people aren’t any better at waiting than many of those annoying impatient toddlers we see around who pitch a fuss if they don’t get their way.

It’s a mature person who has learned to wait. It takes a commitment to learn and change for someone to grow in this business of waiting.

Why is it so hard to wait? Why does it take a lifetime to mature in this? Like so many other parts of the human condition, it seems like our resistance to waiting has roots deep in our souls.

We’re not sure why it’s there but few people deny that it is there. It may have something to do with this tendency to want to be the center of the universe.

It’s the oldest story in the book – our inclination to pursue “god-likeness”. Instead of worshipping and obeying God, we look for ways to be our own gods, refusing to wait for Him.

God runs the universe on a different timetable than ours, and in our minds ours would be a better, more-efficient way to get the job done!

So God tells us loud and clear: “Wait for me!” Note the following words among the many places in the Psalms where we are exhorted to wait.

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him. (37:7) I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. (130:5) We won’t easily forget the tragic story of King Saul who refused to wait for God. It cost him his job and, in the end, his life. (see 1 Sam.13)

And so we wait. We learn, we grow. Hopefully we get better at it. If not, things go worse for us that they should.

Ask God to help you wait. Encourage your friends who are having a hard time waiting for God to come through. It’s hard to wait but our hope is in God.

God is very good at waiting and He waits for us as He teaches us to wait.