How would you describe your life experience?
Have you been a person who has experienced quick success? Do you capture ideas and techniques very quickly and often experience breakthroughs? Or are you more of a slow cooker where things in life have taken longer to develop and required more work? Maybe you are a combination of both?
In Exodus 23:28-30 God tells the Israelite’s that they will have victory over their enemies but it will be little by little. It will take time. But then we read in Deuteronomy 9:3 where God says He will give them “quick success”. So what does God mean? Is He going to drive their enemies out quickly or slowly?
Does God give us quick success or is it “little by little”?
I would like to suggest to you that both are true.
I wonder if we could think about it this way…
A stir-fry, for instance, can be a quick fix meal, resulting in a healthy and satisfying dish in just minutes. When God decides to provide us with an instant breakthrough or healing in our lives it can feel like this, both amazing and satisfying. Our faith grows and builds as we experience God’s power. There is a victorious feeling and strength felt in a quick victory.
Slow-cooked meals are different. They require hours to cook, allowing the meat to soften and the flavours to refine as they permeate the entire meal. There is also refining and building of faith when God requires us to wait. Endurance and perseverance, those words that we love to hate, are grown in the long wait. However, when that final victory comes there is a great sense of relief, gratitude and rejoicing in God.
Life is a combination of “stir-fry” and “slow-cooked” seasons. Both are good, both satisfying and both bring glory to God.
Taking things to God does not mean that He is going to instantly solve them for us but it does mean He will walk through them with us no matter how long it takes.
Scripture tells us in Matthew 7:7 to ask and we will receive, seek and we will find and knock and the door will be opened.
How do we reconcile these verses when we have not experienced the answer or breakthrough we desire? When we have asked but feel we haven’t been answered? Sought and have not found? Knocked and no doors have been opened?
Notice that these verses do not say ‘when’ the answer is coming or ‘when’ we will find what we seek or ‘when’ the door will be opened. It simply and powerfully states that there will be an answer, we will find what we seek and the door will be opened. All these things WILL happen, which also is confirmed further on in Matthew 7:8.
God is Sovereign and in life, there are some things that will be done in an instant and some other things that will take some time.
Life often requires a bit of asking, a bit of knocking and a bit of seeking.
The truth and the promise of these scriptures is that there will be a resolution. The timing is unknown but the resolution is assured.
In my life, there has been the occasional “stir-fry” but most of my life has been a slow-cooked meal. The “stir-fry’s” have been exhilarating and wonderful but the slow-cooked meals have refined my character and my faith.
If you are having a ‘slow-cooked’ season in life right now I want to encourage you that God is true to His word. He will bring resolution to your situation. I would like to challenge you further, to embrace the slow-cooked season. It is going to bring refining, increased faith and develop perseverance.
Lord,
You are Sovereign and Almighty. I do not always understand Your timing but I stand firm in Your word that says, “You will answer, I will find what I am seeking and that the door will be opened.” Thank you.
Amen
