Have you been waiting on God to provide and He’s been postponing your blessing longer than you desired? Maybe it hasn’t just been a couple months of waiting, but rather years, maybe even decades of delay? Waiting for God to provide can be difficult when we don’t know how long the delay will be, and if God will ever actually provide.
We all face delays in life, whether it be a snow delay, traffic delay, or even something as common as a delay in someone’s response to our message. Delays can be inconveniences that cause stress or disrupt our daily lives. Although, in areas that we earnestly seek God to pull through, delay can become something that deeply impacts our determination and hope for the future.
When God chooses to delay something, it can often feel like you’re at an intersection and you’re sitting at the traffic light, but your lane is the light with the “delayed green” sign. It seems like everyone else gets to proceed through the intersection first, except for you. Does it feel like your life is the one who is put on hold. Like God is delaying blessings for you that others are freely granted? While everyone else zips by freely, getting and going places, you’re the one stuck in an endless line of traffic, waiting to go.
I can’t count the times where I’ve been waiting for God to answer my prayers, and I wallow in the waiting, instead of living for Him in the delay. As someone who has endured through singleness my entire life, I’ve struggled in finding peace in God’s delay to provide a godly husband, when I’ve been praying and waiting for so many years. Waiting is something I cringe at hearing, but it seems God has me consistently enduring through it. I’d like to share four benefits of divine delays that I have come to discover in my seasons of waiting.
Delay teaches dependence
When God delays it often feels like we’re being forgotten and it seems as though our needs are going unmet by God. When we don’t achieve what we ask for in a timely manner, it can cause us to turn to God for dependence. Without waiting and enduring through difficult times, we wouldn’t have the opportunity to seek God, pray and rely on Him in our waiting.
Maybe God is withholding something from you, not to cause you harm, but to help strengthen your dependence in Him more deeply.
2 Corinthians 1:9
We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God.
Delay produces patience
Patience is a word often neglected in the world we live in. Nobody seeks to attain patience, because they know what goes hand in hand with achieving patience. Suffering. Endurance. Waiting. Characteristics that bring trouble and pain, not just for a day, but lingers over long seasons of darkness.
When God delays, He is helping our patience grow. We may not like it. We may not feel like we are growing in patience, but with every day that we keep hoping, trusting and seeking God, we are growing in our patience through God’s strength. We may not currently enjoy having to be patient, but one day when we look back, we’ll see how God used patience to refine and humble us.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
Delay is for our protection
Delay can often feel like you’re being hindered from something greater. You may be enduring through a difficult situation and it seems like God is delaying, causing you to suffer longer than you ever dreamed. When God delays, it can seem like God is ignoring you or is unaware of your needs. When God delays it doesn’t signify neglect, but He is trying to protect us. What we think would be beneficial for us, God maybe sees something we are unaware of that could cause us harm. When God chooses to delay, it’s because He has something better planned for us, even when we don’t realize how it will benefit us just yet.
John 13:7
Jesus replied, “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will.”
Delay allows us to witness God’s provision
The greatest joy we can find in the delay is when God chooses to deliver the blessing. When God provides the answer to prayer and the long-awaited blessing we’ve been waiting for, we can’t help but know that it was God’s provision. God’s provision and answer will have never felt so amazing and personal, because we walked the road of endurance with Him to find His rich blessing in the end.
Jeremiah 32:17
O Sovereign LORD! You made the heavens and earth by your strong hand and powerful arm. Nothing is too hard for you!
Nothing can hinder God’s plans for us. Nothing can cease His blessings for our life. The delay you’ve been enduring through may feel impossible to walk through. Reaching the end of the season of waiting, and finally receiving God’s blessing, may seem surreal. You may thought it was unworkable, but God is more than capable. Nothing is too hard for God to accomplish. In the end, you may even realize that thing you desired isn’t what you wanted after all; because God either changed your mindset or you realized He had far better things in store for you than you could ever imagine!
Isaiah 55:8-9
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
God’s delays in our lives aren’t meant to hurt, harm or punish us, but rather mold, shape and refine us. Without His delay, we wouldn’t attain deep dependence on God, grow in patience, and witness His protection and provision. Delays may feel like setbacks on the road towards happiness, but they are rather divine opportunities to protect and enhance us.
I thought this song went along with today’s post, feel free to click the link below to listen.