In this week’s Torah portion, one learns an important lesson about timing. So many things are dependent upon the proper timing. I will let you in on a secret, your timing is never the Lord’s timing and His timing is always the proper timing. Most of the time people are impatient. It is simply hard for one to wait and trust the Lord to fulfill His word in His time.

Abraham was promised to be the father of a great nation and here he was an elderly man and he had not one child. When it was told to him that he would have a son, his wife Sarah doubted God’s ability to keep His word and she suggested that Abraham lay with her handmaiden Hagar to have a son. In a moment of faithlessness, Abraham agreed and when he was 86 years old Ishmael was born. It was not for another 13 years that the Lord would appear again to Abraham to announce that the son of promise would be born. Abraham, like Sarah, doubted God and threw himself upon the ground and laughed at God’s word to him (See Genesis 17:17).

The point which I want you to see is the connection between impatience and faithlessness. It is hard to wait for the things that God has promised. Satan knows this and he often places before us a counterfeit to that which the Lord has promised. When we fail to wait for God to fulfill His word in the manner He said, Satan’s counterfeit can appear to us as the answer.

Abraham needed to wait an additional 15 years (approximately) for God to move and keep His word to him. Fifteen years can seem like a great deal of time to wait, but compromising with Satan’s substitute, in the end will cause much more difficulties for the believer. The word “wait” occurs in the Bible nearly 100 times. A wise thing for each of us to do is to find these places using a concordance and begin reading these verses. In fact, not only the verses but the passage in which they are found. Study these places and even memorize a few of them which speak to you personally. In doing so, you will find that you will grow in learning patience. The result of this will be that the Lord will begin using you more and more in His purposes. Patience is an important spiritual attribute that enables the believer to serve Jesus more effectively.

My favorite verse that teaches about patience is,

“And now what have I hoped, Adonai my hope is to You” Psalm 39:7