Love to hear from and know who is listening

I frequently say that we live in a microwave society. We all want our wishes and desires to be answered just like we warm up the left overs in the microwave, 30 seconds and ding, our desires are answered. I suppose we could also call today the now generation. When pain comes we want relief now! When wrong occurs we want justice now! When disease and sickness comes we want complete healing now! From fast food, to fast relief, we seek drive through window solutions to the wide range of painful experiences in our lives. Society today has been raised on 30 second commercials and 30 minutes sitcoms. We want our lives problems to be packaged in small neatly wrapped boxes. Often we as believers in Jesus Christ we find ourselves like Jacob in Genesis wrestling in the dark with and overpowering source. 

 Genesis 32: 24-26 ESV And Jacob was left alone. And man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 

So often in this now generation we misinterpret God’s patience as His absence. We want God to act on our timeline and according to our ways. I know it is hard to imagine, but maybe, just maybe our perspective is out of alignment. We read into God's postponement of judgment, a cancellation of judgment. When God doesn't heal our loved ones in a week or two or even a month or two, then God must be out of touch, He is just simply absent! When I say these things I must admit that I am really preaching to myself. Often my prayer to God is “Grant me patients God and give it to me now!” Unfortunately, God does not set his time by my clock. God does not take his cues from my requests. Oh, how I wish God would align his clock with mine, well at least most of the time anyways. Sometimes later on I say, Oh Praise God, you gave me a no answer 3 months ago, I wanted you to act so swiftly, but now I see that your no answers was really in my best interest. It is in those moments when I thank God that he didn't listen to my fervent prayers and hopes for things to work out the way I wanted them to. 

Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. 

Sometimes life seems overwhelming. We want our difficulties cured right now. We want answers now! We want healing now! Just as grapes must be pressed to create wine, or olives crushed for oil, intense pressure is God's method for bringing out the best in you. When the weight feels unfair and you are being squeezed from every side, you are in a season of transformation rather than destruction. When life feels overwhelming, remember that, like grapes, you are not being crushed to be destroyed, but to release the sweetness within. Pressure is not punishment; it is preparation. Your trial is transforming you into something useful and beautiful that couldn't emerge without the pressure.

James 1:2-4 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 

Fix your eyes on the moment you will see Jesus face-to-face. Endure persecution and affliction with courage. 

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