In the Meantime: Developing Patience as Personal Development

Our quick-click, push-button society has yielded a fast-food approach to almost anything that we want. Within moments, we can manufacture transactions that move money, deliver meals, and even facilitate contact with real or artificial people and virtual environments.

While many of our modern technologies afford luxuries and conveniences we would hesitate to trade, they often come at a price. Sometimes, we deceive ourselves that this same mentality transfers to our relationship with God. We see the speed of society and believe that God subscribes to the same pattern.

In error, we can sometimes act as if God submits to the pace of society and will respond to our demands in kind, always giving us what we want and at the speed of now. We may have convinced ourselves that the Lord is interested in making deals or bartering blessings in exchange for behavior.

He isn’t interested in anything that diminishes our relationship with Him, and He abhors the practice of dressing external actions to hide an interior life that is distanced from God (Matthew 15:8, 23:27-28). God prioritizes the transformation of the heart, which doesn’t happen instantaneously, but is progressive and occurs through test and trial.

Proof in the process

Sometimes, we become disconnected from the Source and more enamored and distracted by the world (1 John 2:16). Our attention is drawn away from our first love, lured by the shine and sugar that threatens to replace our heart’s hunger for righteousness. While God’s promises in Christ are “yes and amen,” we don’t always see answers to our prayers right when we expect them (2 Corinthians 1:20).

There are times when He answers while we are still forming the words to our prayers (Isaiah 65:24). There are moments when we encounter the immediacy of the Word’s promises, but it is often through the process of seedtime and harvest that we learn to cultivate a faith that endures (Genesis 8:22).

It can stir up frustration when we don’t see an answer right away. The process seems to drag on and bring us with it, into a lowly place where we question God and ourselves, not with curiosity, but rather with cynicism. That has the potential to act as a “kryptonite” to our faith, making it impotent and unable to recover.

When we circumvent the necessary, though uncomfortable process of addressing hard questions and situations with God, we abort and stagnate our personal growth and development. We short-circuit the maturity of fruit we want to see manifest in our lives and through our prayers.

While many believers deny or spiritualize emotional discomfort, we might find greater freedom and relief in actually being honest with God. If we don’t confess where we are in our thoughts and emotions, how can we hear His wisdom in His word?

The role of the Holy Spirit isn’t only to comfort us by providing solace, but also to lead and guide us into truth. More specifically, that means that He provides illumination through the Scriptures of what is obscure or invisible.

Patience as personal development

God already knows the time and the winding circumstances that will populate the path between our request and His answer. When the fruit of our prayers doesn’t manifest right away, the gap between our expectations and experience can stir internal conflict.

Our emotions can create a push and pull between what we want and what God knows is best. These can prompt us to seek alternatives to God’s plan. There, we encounter danger, as impatience and impulse influence our haste in decision-making.

The hiss of the serpent winds its way into our internal script, persuading us to pursue something that God never commanded or intended. In deception, he goads us, as he did with Eve, to question God’s goodness and take matters into our own hands.

However, if we can trust God and believe in His goodness, we can follow His way to escape the tempter’s snare (1 Corinthians 10:13). The Holy Spirit will comfort us through awkward seasons of waiting, where we can not only achieve personal development but spiritual growth that influences every area of life. In the meantime, God has a sovereign plan and as we submit to Him, we will find surprise and delight as we grow in Him.

God uses waiting periods to refine our desires and cultivate spiritual fruit in us, including patience (Galatians 5:22-23). Simply put, “not right now” doesn’t equate to “never.” God is eternal. He isn’t limited by time to answer what He’s promised. He often uses time and circumstance to mature, prove, or test our hearts, making them ready to receive from Him and steward those rightly timed promises with grace.

Perspective

Invariably, there will be times when we lack clarity and are agitated with questions that nag our subconscious. God has not guaranteed that everything will feel good along our personal development journey. However, as we offer our quandaries and questions to Him, we can exchange burdensome thoughts for soul rest.

Jesus guarantees joy and peace that transcend circumstance and transform perspective. Hope in the person of Christ anchors our faith in the Word that stabilizes and strengthens (Hebrews 6:19).

We don’t need to give up our belief in seeing God’s goodness (Psalm 27:13). As we bind ourselves to Him, we gain the stamina to endure challenging seasons (Psalm 27:14; Isaiah 40:31). God uses suffering to inform and enlarge our perspective beyond present conditions.

He will enable us to discern by His Spirit, distinguishing what is good, not from our shortsighted perspective, but rather from His elevated and eternal view that sees ahead of and around what finite minds don’t yet know because He has decreed it all.

Pivot

Learning to embrace joy and contentment in the meantime sustains us. Having a heart that has decided to delight in the Lord, regardless of what presents circumstantially, will buffer us from the difficulties that would batter us emotionally.

That doesn’t happen without the Holy Spirit, though. He will not only comfort us when experiencing suffering during extended waiting seasons. Anchoring ourselves to key verses will aid our spiritual and personal development as we endure.

Not only can we survive the difficulties we face, but we can thrive in doing so. It will require intention. This is not easy, but there is grace for it. God anoints or equips us with His power, enabling us to do the hard things, with joy and ease, by His strength (Isaiah 12:2; Nehemiah 8:10; Philippians 4:13).

Instead of continually dwelling on the negative, we can begin to steer our thoughts and pivot into faith-filled actions, walking out the decision to redirect course with the Lord.

Next steps for personal development

God uses unlikely circumstances as ingredients to work together for good (Romans 8:28). It accomplishes His divine purpose, and though you may not yet see it, it is greater than the sum of your current conditions. As you sift and sort through the experiences and emotions that brought you to this place in your faith walk, know that you don’t have to do it alone.

It may be most helpful to take the next step by scheduling with a Christian counselor. While you may not see the immediate results of answered prayer, be encouraged and equipped to use your “meantime” as a space to grow spiritually and develop personally.