Things Take Time

I stumbled across this piece by my friend, Lenny Cacchio, while perusing the Born to Win website:

Instant access to information on the internet is certainly one of the blessings of our age. In a fraction of the time that it once took, we can read about the geography of Madagascar, research the veracity of the latest urban legends, check the value of our investments, look for employment opportunities, listen to the President's latest speech and the opposing party's reaction, and learn about the latest alternative energy sources. We can buy a best-seller, download music, research the trade-in value of our cars, chat with a stranger in Finland, argue politics with someone in New York, buy tickets to Las Vegas, and ask advice on anything from homeopathic medicine to the deciphering of logarithms.

All of this we can do while sipping coffee during lunch hour or in the comfort of our own homes. In fact, if you need something now, there is probably a way to get it via the internet.

All of that can be very good, but here is the problem: We can't really have everything now. We can't have peace on earth now. We can't have perfect health now. We can't instantly solve marriage problems, or neighbor problems, or any other interpersonal (or international) problems of the moment.

Expect solutions to national problems in the a nano-second time-frame? Won't happen, but sometimes we expect our duly elected officials to do just that. Medicare is in a crisis? Just pass a law and fix it. Oil prices are too high and we need alternative sources of energy? Just turn corn into alcohol and we'll all drive merrily into the sunset. The situation in the Middle East is wrenchingly horrid? Everybody just needs to learn to get along. It doesn't matter that the problems of the world have been decades or centuries (or even millennia) in the making. We want the problems solved, and we want them solved now.

Although we have instant access today to information and commerce, and that has contributed to our "now" mentality, the internet did not cause the attitude. Impatience has always been a part of the human experience. Biblically, patience is a virtue and a vital part of the fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22). And in ancient times it was too often missing even as it is today.

When Moses returned to Egypt after his 40-year exile with the commission in hand to lead his nation out of slavery, he and his brother Aaron met with the leaders of Israel and related to them all that God had promised he would do. They believed Moses, but they failed to see that it would take some time. When Pharoah rebuffed Moses and Aaron and vowed to make the Israelite bondage even more unbearable, the Israelites reacted as we might well expect: "You have made us a stench to Pharoah and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us." (Exodus 5:21 NIV)

Good things take time, but they wanted their freedom now. Jesus fielded some of the same questions from his disciples. Not long after his resurrection, they wanted to know if now was the time. "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" Jesus answer: "It is not for you to know." (Acts 1: 6, 7 NIV).

I take the obvious lesson from this, that we need to patiently bear this life and world until the fullness of the kingdom comes, which will be in God's time and not ours. I also take another lesson from it: good things take time. We cannot expect pushbutton answers to the worlds ills nor to ours. If it takes longer than a 24 hour news cycle to win the war on terror, we should not lose heart. Good things take time.