While plopped on the couch one night, I placed an Amazon order for a ceiling fan. Would you believe it was perched on our porch the next morning at 6:30? Another time I ordered some office supplies at 11:00 am. By 3:00 that afternoon, guess what was waiting on our porch?
Boy! Wasn’t all that long ago when TV marketers urged us, “Allow six to eight weeks for delivery.”
But now, second-day-air is ancient history, and Fed-Ex overnight has ceased to dazzle. We have tasted—indeed, increasingly expect—same-day delivery.
Yet, I wonder. Does all this click-today-get-today consumerism school us in unholy expectations? Does our immediate acquisition of stuff create a sense of “give it to me now” when it comes to the spiritual life?
We’re told to pray without ceasing. But prayer is not a portal to instant answers.
- Elijah prayed for rain for three and a half years.
- Zacharias and his wife, Elizabeth, prayed for a son for many years.
- Abraham prayed for God to fulfill His promise of a son for 25 years. On and on the biblical examples go.
Don’t get me wrong. I want answers to my prayers as fast as the next person. But maybe we need to be reminded that there are schedules more important than ours.
Assuredly, things in the storehouses of heaven run on a different timetable—God’s.