Days Versus Decades

"I have one big piece of advice for you," said my professor. "Slow down."

Slow down. 

Two words, and they sound so simple right? 

Recently, as I've alluded to many times in last week's blogs, Josiah and I had a brief coaching session with my Christian Life Coaching professor, Eric Viets, regarding the building of our ministry. In addition to the little tidbit above, he had a lot of wonderful advice regarding blogging, newsletters, setting up the website, our logo, and so much more. 

Professor Viets was able to give this advice because, not only is he a wonderful professor at Liberty (seriously, he's one of the best proofreaders I've ever encountered), he and his wife have a flourishing ministry called Pre Engaged. Not only do they offer pre-marital counseling, they suggest and offer counseling before a couple gets engaged. I don't know about you, but I think that's BRILLIANT. They've been building this ministry for four years, so their advice was invaluable.

In preparation for the meeting, he had both of us write a ten-year letter (which we'll do in one Corinthians 3 Thursday link up), define our vision and mission along with some goals, and take a personality test. When it was time for us to work out our goals, I was on it.

I was going to have the entire ministry set up within weeks. I was going to have a book written within a year. I was going to have a website developed almost immediately. I was going to leap buildings in a single bound...or so I thought.

In my haste to set impressive goals and be the star pupil I overlooked the fact that doing things right often takes strong dedication over time.

Professor Viets said it this way: "We live day-to-day, but God often works in decades."

Mind. Blown.

I think I've quoted him a hundred times to various people over the last couple weeks because that one sentence applies to so many different facets of life! 

We live in a culture that wants everything now...faster, faster, FASTER! The professor called it a "Burger King mentality": we want it our way, right away.

But God doesn't normally work that way. He can, but he doesn't. Instead, he understands that, in order to build virtues in us like patience and persistence, we have to wait and work because "endurance produces character, and character produces hope." (Romans 5:4).

The prophet Isaiah said:

But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary;

they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:31

God is trying to build endurance in us through prayer and faith. Mark Batterson, in The Circle Maker, says this: 

We live in a culture that overvalues 15 minutes of fame and undervalues lifelong faithfulness. Maybe we have it backward. Just as our greatest successes come at the heels of our greatest failures, our greatest answers often come on the heels of our longest and most boring prayers. 

So today, tomorrow, or next week, when you're tempted to throw in the towel because God just isn't answering your prayer and hope is still out of sight, remember that God is always at work, always with you, always for you. He just works in decades sometimes, instead of days.