HUMANS, because we live more or less within a span of 100 years, are keen on time.

Suffering for days may seem like an eternity. We become very impatient at God when we see things, such as His promises, slow in happening, not realising that God — who is as old as time — sees things differently from humans. Daniel, the prophet, calls him the “Ancient of days”. The apostle Peter states a thousand years to man is but a day to God (2 Pet 3:8).

Can we develop a waiting attitude on God? Arguably, this may not be easy given our limited lifespan. In fact, the prophet Habakkuk saw the level of injustice around him and couldn’t contain himself, in effect asking where is God in all this?

Do we feel like Habakkuk did?

How long, O God, must I cry for help, but you do not hear?

How long must I ask for help from violence, but you do not intervene?

Why do you make me witness wrongdoing?

And why do you tolerate oppression?

Why are destruction and violence before me?

And why do quarrelling and conflict abound?

So law is paralyzed,

And justice is never carried out.

For the wicked surround the righteous;

That is why justice is perverted.

As soon as Habakkuk wrote those verses in chapter one, he had a different mindset in chapter three when God decided to act in His time.

You trampled the nations in anger.

You went out for the salvation of your people, to save your anointed one.

You crushed the leader of the house of the wicked.

It may be long, but not forever

Recall the nation of Israel — God’s chosen people — in bondage. The people of Israel fell into Egyptian bondage for some 400 years. Imagine that! Four generations would have died and yet the promise of deliverance from Egyptian bondage was nowhere in sight.

Imagine how easy it would be for the second, third or fourth generation to lose faith in an exodus. And yet, after 400 years, God decided to act. That was a long time for man, but for God, it was less than half a day, if we go by what Peter tells us that a thousand years is a day to God.

Today, many feel hopeless and the coronavirus has, in some ways, forced many to be living a life of servitude, doing things we really do not want to, such as mask-wearing and not being able to freely hug whomever we want. But God promises a time when he will break the chains of diseases and the shackles of injustice and crime, making these things of the past no longer in our minds (Is 65:17). Do we have this patience?

Make use of the seeming delay

While there may be a seeming delay, He will not be late. Let us take action. Could the period of delay be an opportunity to make it right with God?

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some consider slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. (2 Pet 3:9)

God invites us to put faith in him, the true source of health. He wants us to learn the truth about Him and be assured as John 8:32 says: “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

In the meantime, remember Hab 2:3 —

For the vision is yet for its appointed time,

And it is rushing toward its end, and it will not lie.

Even if it should delay, keep in expectation of it!

For it will without fail come true.

It will not be late!

If you have any questions or would like to discuss how the Bible can further be of comfort in these times, please contact Warrick Lattibeaudiere, a minister of religion, at wglatts@yahoo.com.