Where’s Mine?

Where’s Mine?

I was in a barbeque restaurant recently when I witnessed something that really disturbed me. My wife and I were sitting, we had already received our food from the waiter, and we were having a discussion about the Theophonics. A fairly large group of people, there were about nine, came in and sat at the booth behind my wife. They were followed by a gentleman that ordered something to-go. There weren’t tall backs on the booths so we were able to overhear everything the people were saying. The matriarch of the group became immediately flustered when the to-go gentleman received his food before her spread of family. She got up and stalked over to the area coming out of the kitchen with intent to way-lay the waiter. At that exact moment, he just happened to have a large tray containing most of her family’s food on it. She hassled him all the way back to the booth. After finding that he did not have her plate right that moment, she became visibly agitated. In a very loud and angry voice she demanded, “Where’s mine?” Before the words could even clear her mouth, a second waiter carrying the second half of her family’s food arrived.

Aren’t we that way with God? We picture Him as the provider of a service, and then we gripe at Him when he doesn’t get right to it. I’ve done it myself. I’d like to talk today about where that urge comes from.

We, as humans living in an age of rapid change, have grown accustomed to having things at our fingertips. When you looked up this blog, your computer interfaced with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other computers spread across the world. And it did this in a few seconds. If we don’t feel like cooking, we can drive through the window of a restaurant and pick up food ready to go. And as we have become more and more conditioned to this immediate response, we expect that from everything we contact. God isn’t like the internet or a fast-food diner. God is God. That is a rather obvious and simple way to explain something that is beyond our ability to comprehend.

God’s time-table stretches from the beginning of creation to whenever he decides to come back to get His children. This is a difficult concept to understand, and it has several side effects that a world in a hurry will not always like to understand. When we pray asking God for something in particular, we are to expect an answer in God’s time, not our own. To Him, seconds are virtually nothing. Minutes are barely registered on a timeline that big. That means that we should not push our culturally acclimated timetable on a God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

I know that understanding these ideas is unsettling for some people. Let us remember though, God is not the one that is supposed to render the service in the relationship. We are his children, and we are to do the service towards Him. We are to use our lives to work and minister in His kingdom. The more we work for Him, and the closer we get to Him spiritually, the more we should realize what we need to ask for in prayer. This should also give us the patience to wait on God’s timing. We shouldn’t look at the blessings of others and demand God for our own. We should diligently work in His kingdom for His sake, not our own.

Instead of having a, “Where’s mine?” attitude, try to realize that the scope of the world is bigger than you or me. When combined with the understanding that God’s plan is perfect, and the understanding that His timing has to subsequently be perfect, we should be faced with overwhelming proof that we don’t know how things should turn out. This is not an excuse to become complacent with Christianity, but it is a healthy dose of reality that is intended to remove the anger, stress, and fear from our lives. We might demand an immediate response from a waiter or from a fast-food chain, but we cannot expect God to snap into action on every request we make. He’s got things in much better control than we do. So how should we expect our decisions to line up with His, especially when we want it in our time?

Psalms 46:10- Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth