The Amazon Prime Prayer

     It's 8:48pm on Saturday night. I've already sunk an hour into this home project before realizing I don't have the right piece to finish the job. All the hardware stores will be closed by the time I get there, so crack open my laptop and find my way to Amazon.com. 30 minutes and 17 reviews later, I found what I need.

Click. Cart. Buy. Done.

     It's 10:46am on Sunday morning. I pull in to see a brown package leaning against my front door. I mentally run through all the things it could be. I'm not even thinking about the item I ordered 14 hours ago. I open the box and immediately drop it on the table. It. Is. Here. How? Was it magic? Do they deliver by rocket ship? I have no idea, but I was blown away that my order was here so fast. 

Patience is a lost art.

     Most things that we want we can get immediately - streaming movies, on demand TV, ordering pizza with an app. We live in a culture that celebrates instant gratification, and this bleeds over into our spiritual life. Many times we expect our prayers to work like Amazon Prime. We pray and then wait for God's answer to show up at our doorstep 14 hours later. 

     Sometimes, God says "no." Sometimes, he makes us wait. Sometimes, we don't understand why. But God is a good Father, and only he says "no" to say "yes" to something better. 

So what do we do when God makes us wait?

We preach the Gospel to ourselves.

     It's only by remembering of the grace of Jesus that we are truly able to endure the waiting. We wait through sleepless nights, chronic pain, bouts of sickness, nagging anxiety, and lingering doubt because we "have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer [we] who live, but Christ who lives in [us]" (Galatians 2:20a). Because of Jesus, we will practice the art of patience and wait to see how much better God's answer is than what we asked for.

Let's preach the Gospel to our family, and wait together to see what God does.