God's Time is an Investment

Am I the only one that hates when people say, 'It's all in God's perfect time'? I can't be the only one, right?
Like we have to wait for the magic moment when God decides to perform His will in our lives...something you have been waiting for, praying for, suddenly it happens! It's supposed to be at that mysteriously elusive perfect time. It can feel frustrating.

Except that is not what it means at all. God is not really like that. He is alert and active and as the story of Easter goes: Alive! I forget that answered prayers are not: unanswered and then suddenly answered. Prayers are always in the process of being answered.

No prayer is ever wasted. Every prayer is leading up to the moment it appears answered, building upon each other. I want to get away from this idea that time is being wasted, because time is not looking the way I want. It's all God's time so how can it be a waste?

God is not wasting our time but we may be wasting His. If we are spending time in prayer, whether it's prayers that are prayed for a month or years, even decades, none of that time was wasted.

Prayer is time spent with God, communing with Him, fellow-shipping with Him, listening to and for Him, getting to know Him. When you want to get to know someone, you spend time with them,right? When you love someone, you desire to spend lots of time with them.

Prayer is not only petitioning God, working to produce the changes we want to see but it's also working to change us. When we are praying, we are getting more in tune with the heart of God and He begins to direct our prayers for His will. Recently I have experienced answers to prayers that I have prayed for decades. Decades people. Plural. One decade is ten years...some of these answered prayers have been prayed over for multiple decades.

That is a long time.

The prayers have come to fruition. Other recently answered prayers, took only a few years of praying. All the prayers between not being answered and being answered, only appeared unanswered to my perspective because I am limited by my own point of view. The bigger pictures proves that God had never not been working. He was always working to complete the good work He had started.

It's like praying for your children, or their future spouse (you should do that if you're not already). Those are not prayers that will be answered right now, or even tomorrow. It's a childhood of faithful prayers. A lesson in longevity, an investment. That's what prayers really are: investments. Investments into the future of who or what you are praying for. A prayer is an investment in faith.

Part of that investment is realizing it's ALL God's time. It's less about this idea of God's perfect timing and more about God's perfect time...because it's all His time. When we realize it's His time...we realize we have no right to waste it.

How many years (decades) passed before Moses led the people out of Egypt, as God has promised?
How many years (decades) wandering in the desert?
How many years (decades) had Sarah hoped to have a child of her own?
How many years (decades) before Christ revealed himself as the Messiah?

Was any of that time wasted? What was God doing all.that.time? He was teaching His people who He was and is. He was teaching them who they were and who they were becoming...becoming people of faith, grace, endurance and perseverance. They were becoming people who knew God, intimately. That doesn't happen with one prayer.

It happens through a childhood, a marriage, a lifetime...of prayers.