When our Nelson was three years old, he noticed the table set for dinner and climbed into his junior chair, hoping for something to eat. I was busy dishing up four bowls of fruit when he began to whine. “I’m hungry! I wanna eat now!”

“Pretty soon,” I said. “When Papa gets home.”

As his complaining escalated, I became irritated he wouldn’t wait and told him to go find something to do away from the kitchen. But before he did, he asked three weighty questions.

“Do I have to obey you?”

“You should,” I said.

“But do you have to obey anyone?”

For the sake of the analogy, I said, “Yes. Papa.”

“Then who does Papa have to obey?”

I could see where he was going. “Jesus,” I said.

There was a pause, and then he said, “Well… I just heard the Lord Jesus tell you, ‘Give that Nelson a bowl of fruit’!”

It was good theology, but he still had to wait.

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The older I get, the more I see that life is full of unpleasant waiting. This morning during my prayer time, every situation I prayed over was something I’d been praying about for a long time. In some cases it’s been decades.

God isn’t asleep at the switch, and he’s not ignoring me. To the contrary, every one of my prayers has been heard and answered. But almost every answer has been, “Wait.” There’s a valid reason, though. As I’m asking the Lord to do things in the lives of others, he’s also interested in doing things in mine. And insisting I wait is effective toward that end.

He is also “setting the scene” for the best possible outcome, one that belongs to him.

Thirty years ago when our first three children were three, five and seven, they begged to have their own gardens. We’d had a 50 x 60 ft. kitchen garden in previous years, and although the kids had sporadically participated, Nate and I had done most of the work. They did help husk corn for dinner and pick beans to boil, but of course that was the fun part, the grand finale.

I liked the idea of their own small gardens. It would be a good way to teach the difficult concepts of waiting and delayed gratification. We turned over a strip of dirt on the south side of the garage and divided it into three  sections. After a trip to the local nursery for seed packets and a few plants, they proudly stood in front of their handiwork for photos.

During the weeks to come, my nagging them to weed and water grew old for all of us, but they did have mild success, maybe 30%. As for the other 70%, it was just too hard to labor all summer while waiting for produce.

When it gets hard to wait, especially to see a harvest of spiritual fruit in myself or someone else, it’s helpful to remember God’s description of life’s brevity. Because once I’ve left this world as Nate has done, I don’t want to look back at all I missed and say, “Oh, if I’d only waited!”

“Since the world began, no ear has heard, and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for him!” (Isaiah 64:4)