God Does Not Seem to Be in a Hurry

We Are Losing Our Patience

Modern life is making us increasingly impatient.

A train arrives a few minutes late. A traffic light takes a little too long to change. A webpage loads more slowly than expected. Any of these can make us restless. We walk faster, speak faster, and grow ever more accustomed to instant messaging, same-day delivery, and entertainment on demand. Speed gradually becomes synonymous with efficiency, while waiting begins to feel like wasted time.

The problem is not simply that life has become faster. At a deeper level, we are becoming less able to bear waiting itself.

We want our work to produce results quickly. We want our children to grow up quickly. We want others to understand us quickly. Even after we pray, we often want circumstances to change at once. Waiting makes us uneasy because we have grown accustomed to constant movement and rapid response. When nothing seems to be happening, we become restless.

Patience Begins with Bearing

I have often wondered why the English words patient and patience are so closely related. My first, rather intuitive thought was that when you are ill and confined to bed, unable to go anywhere or do very much, you have little choice but to learn patience.

The history of the words goes deeper. Both ultimately descend from Latin words built on pati, meaning to suffer, endure, or undergo. The connection preserves something we easily forget: patience is not merely a calm temperament. At its root, it has to do with our capacity to bear.

We need patience precisely because reality does not immediately conform to our wishes. We have to bear uncertainty, delay, and the absence of an immediate answer.

The New Testament word μακροθυμία (makrothymia) takes this idea further. Commonly translated as patience, forbearance, or long-suffering, it describes the capacity to endure delay, provocation, and repeated disappointment without quickly giving way to anger.

The hardest kind of patience, then, is rarely waiting a few minutes for a train. It is waiting for God’s direction, waiting for circumstances to change, or waiting for an answer to prayer.

God Does Not Seem to Be in a Hurry

Measured by the modern standards of speed, scale, and growth, the God of Scripture often seems remarkably unhurried.

Jeremiah proclaimed the word of God for years and was repeatedly met with rejection, ridicule, and persecution. He described his own experience this way:

“For the word of the LORD has become for me
a reproach and derision all day long.”

— Jeremiah 20:8

The word had been spoken, yet people continued to live as before. If we judged Jeremiah only by the visible results of his ministry, he would hardly fit our modern definition of success.

The New Testament does not present an easier path. Paul devoted his life to preaching the gospel, yet he repeatedly encountered suffering and opposition:

“Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked.”

— 2 Corinthians 11:24–25

Paul preached the gospel, planted churches, and wrote letters of instruction and correction, while continuing to face danger, rejection, and misunderstanding. Scripture never treats faithfulness and immediate results as though they were the same thing.

Why Did Jesus Not Resist?

The life of Jesus reveals even more clearly how different God’s way is from the world’s understanding of success.

By contemporary standards of success, efficiency, and influence, the end of Jesus’ earthly life might look like complete failure. He proclaimed the kingdom of God, yet many refused to believe him. He was falsely accused, humiliated, beaten, and finally crucified.

What makes this especially difficult to understand is that Jesus was not powerless to prevent it.

Before his arrest, he told his disciples:

“Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?”

— Matthew 26:53

If he possessed such power, why did he not use it to vindicate himself? Why not overwhelm those who accused him? Why not make everyone submit immediately?

If efficiency were the highest good, that would surely have been the faster way.

But Jesus did not choose it.

He revealed the truth and allowed people to reject it. This was not a lack of power. It reveals something fundamental about love: love and coercion are not the same thing.

Power can compel outward obedience, but outward obedience is not the same as trust. Faith and love cannot be reduced to submission produced by force.

God’s love for humanity therefore involves patience. He allows people to hesitate, flee, and even refuse him. Jesus did not endure the cross because he lacked the power to resist. He endured it without using force to secure human submission.

Patience Is What Love Looks Like Over Time

Why is God able to wait for us in this way?

Scripture brings us back to love.

“God is love.”

— 1 John 4:8

And when Paul describes love, the first thing he says is:

“Love is patient and kind.”

— 1 Corinthians 13:4

The people we love are never finished products. Human beings are weak. We fail, repeat our mistakes, and resist what is good. If love is to endure, it must be able to bear time.

In this sense, patience is what love looks like over time.

The cross reveals this love most fully. God did not wait for us to become worthy of his love.

“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

— Romans 5:8

Love comes before our worthiness. If we first had to deserve such love, none of us could stand before God. Even in weakness, failure, and sin, God continues to call and wait. Even when a person is ready to give up on himself, God has not therefore given up on him.

Patience, however, is not indulgence. God still judges, disciplines, and calls people to repentance. His patience does not abandon truth. It gives people time to turn back.

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

— 2 Peter 3:9

What we experience as delay may also be time that God, in his patience, leaves open for repentance.

When God Does Not Answer on Our Schedule

The story of Lazarus in the Gospel of John may show this more clearly than almost any other.

When Lazarus became seriously ill, Martha and Mary sent word to Jesus. Yet Jesus did not leave immediately.

“So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”

— John 11:6

By the time Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days. Martha met him with words that still sound painfully familiar:

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

— John 11:21

It is one of the most natural questions suffering can produce: if you love me, why did you not come sooner?

Jesus’ delay was not indifference. Standing before the grief of Lazarus’ death,

“Jesus wept.”

— John 11:35

But death was not the end of the story. At the tomb, Jesus called out:

“Lazarus, come out.”

“The man who had died came out.”

— John 11:43–44

Martha and Mary could see the delay and what appeared to be an irreversible death. Jesus knew more than they could see at that moment.

This is why waiting requires faith.

We pray, and the difficulty remains. We cry out to God, and nothing in our circumstances seems to change. It is easy, then, to mistake waiting for God’s silence, and delay for his absence.

But we can see only how far the story has unfolded. We do not yet know how God’s work will continue.

Modern life teaches us to measure efficiency by speed and value by visible results. Scripture teaches a different relationship to time. Repentance takes time. Faith takes time. The formation of a spiritual life takes time.

God does not seem to be in a hurry.

Perhaps it is not his timing that needs to change, but our faith. May we learn, within this love, to be patient.