The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
-2 Peter 3:9

Let's think back, for a moment, to a time when we were particularly patient with someone. It might have been a child, spouse, neighbor or co-worker. How many times did they let us down before they finally got it right? How many days did we let it slide, before we showed up on their doorstep asking for our money? How many broken promises did we grudgingly endure before we had our fill? Can we count on two hands? How about one hand?

Maybe some of us count ourselves as especially gracious people; letting it go, time and time again in the belief that, someday, they will come through. What if we have waited an entire lifetime for them to make good, own up, pay back or otherwise, do the thing that we have been waiting for them to do?

Each report of failure or missed opportunity drives us closer and closer to build our homes on the miry, fruitless fields of bitterness. At some point, what began as an altruistic desire for the betterment of the other person has become a base need for recompense, justice and vindication. Even if they somehow manage to follow through and get it done, things will not be the same. There will be damage to contend with. It will take even more time.

It is a good thing that we are not God.

If each of us takes the longest period of time that we have waited for someone to change and multiply it by 6.7 billion, well, then we might start to get a picture of how much waiting God does. Nobody waits more than God.

Of course, God doesn’t experience time the same way we do, but it is worth some thought. And yet, when we finally choose to give up and do it God’s way, he treats us as if it only took us twenty seconds to make up our mind instead of twenty years. Really, he treats us as if we didn’t take any time at all; like we were never delinquent to begin with. Are we capable of that kind of patience? No, but we are able to accept the idea that God is, right?

He waits for us; sometimes for the duration of our entire lives. His desire is that none of us perish…that’s nobody. Do we live as though that were actually true? We can, but only if we changed the way we look at those who we are waiting for, through the filter of God’s desire rather than our own.

After all, it is likely through us, that those people will decide not to keep God waiting anymore.