Why is that when we face a difficult situation, God often makes us wait so long to answer our prayers? Until we are almost ready to give up?
“We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character and character hope.”(Rom 5:3-4)
1.God wants us to press into knowing His character
His character as Redeemer, His justice and love etc, not just as an intellectual understanding, but to PROVE His character. That is to experience the fullness of His character. The longer we have to wait, the more we are forced to press into these attributes and this is God’s intention. A quick resolving of our situation means we would learn less about His redemption and character. So we cannot give up as we would miss out on all this revelation and all that comes with the victory. This is just not about overcoming our trials(often our focus) but about an eternal experiential grasp of who God is!!
2.God wants us to learn to depend on His character
God uses overcoming trials to teach us todepend on His character each day and not on circumstances. Notice how many of the Psalmists are in extreme circumstances, but they always come back to the character of God at the end of the psalm and rest in this.
3.Because it Honours God
When we choose to depend on the character of God and depend on Him, rather than trying to solve a difficult situation ourselves or giving up on a solution, this greatly honours Him, because it shows that we trust more in Him than in our own difficult circumstances. The longer we have to trust Him, the greater the honour that the Lord receives.
David chose to spare Saul twice, because he wanted to honour the Lord above resolving his own circumstances. This meant David waiting many more years for the fulfilment of God’s promises to him.
4.Because the blessing will be greater if we wait
The longer we have to wait for God’s answer, the greater will be the answer and the more we will experience the extent of God’s love, grace and redemption. God honours those who honour Him (1 Sam 2:30) when we are faced with overcoming trials.
In fact we can pray for and expect a much greater answer from God than we would ever ask. God is the “immeasurable more” God (Eph 3:20). He wants fullness for us, not just in part (3:19).
The story of Joseph is a great example of this. Joseph had to wait 13 years from his enslavement to God radically changing his situation to become the second in command to Pharaoh.
If we don’t wait we will miss out on all this!
5.Because it spreads God’s glory more across the earth
Overcoming trials is about His Name, firstly the honour of His Name and secondly about spreading His Name and character throughout the whole earth (Hab 2:14). That is that everyone might not only hear about His character but have His character.
There is a strong connection therefore between spreading His glory, honour and becoming like Him. God wants both! When we have His character inside us, He can use us as great instruments to spread this character and holiness.
The problem is that:
We get disappointed, lose faith and often give up before the blessing and victory comes.
We are there mostly to resolve our situation rather than see God’s thoughts in all of this and value His greater plan!
It tests whether we really want to honour God or like Balaam to know His thoughts and to do our own thing instead.
However, God will not make us wait longer than we can endure (1 Cor 10:13).
So when we are faced with a great trial that God doesn’t seem to answer, then let’s trust Him and His character and use this time to press into understanding more of His character. The rewards are very great if we will just wait and prove God.