How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but You do not listen?  Habakkuk 1:2

Yet I will wait patiently …Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines…Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.  Habakkuk 3:17-18

     At the beginning of Habakkuk, we find a key--four words which often account--for my misery:  I HAVE A TIMETABLE.  Rather than living my life by my calendar, I tend to live by a stopwatch.”How long?” (But if you are going to sound like me, you have to draw it out so it sounds whiney and pitiful.) My feelings of impatience make everything seem urgent, and in my head somewhere because God is eternal, I think He has no concept of time. Seriously!

     While we laugh about this sometimes (how impatient we are with God’s timing), it’s true that some of the things we are waiting for are heart-rending.  Tears are running down our faces as we say,” When, God, when?” Habakkuk is saying, “Why isn’t anything happening?  God, it’s time.  It was time yesterday, but today would be good.”

      I know that God is a God of eternity, but He has a precise plan. He knows why, He knows what, and He knows when.   I challenge you to do a study through the Bible of the word time.  Galatians 4:4 says,  “In the fullness of time God sent His Son.”  God doesn’t only have a purpose for what He does; He also has a time.  For us any time is right.  We tend to live on ME CENTRAL TIME instead of GOD STANDARD TIME. In chapter 2 and 3, there is a shift in Habakkuk’s attitude.  He finally says, “I will wait patiently on God.” 

     George Matheson writes, “There are some prayers that are followed by a Divine silence because we are not yet ripe for all we have asked; there are others which are so followed because we are ripe for more.  We come to the door of the sepulcher to beg for the body of Jesus; we are answered by silence because we get something better—a living Lord.  Wait for Him in the silence and before long death will be swallowed up in victory.”

     At the very end of chapter 3, we see the stunning transformation in Habakkuk’s attitude.  What is the answer to “I have a timetable”? CONFIDENT HUMILITY.  I bow to the fact that You are God, and I am bold in my belief that You will hear and answer.  When?  In Your time, Lord. In Your good, good time. In the meantime, “I will rejoice!”

*Do you have a timetable? How miserable is it making you right now?

Lord, I choose to stop resisting and marking time. I will patiently wait on You. In the meantime, Lord, help me to rejoice. While I am waiting on what You have yet to do, there is much in my life that You have already done. For those things, and for the things yet to come, I bow in grateful thanks, Amen.


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