“We think that if God is going to relieve our sufferings, He ought to do so immediately. Any delay vitiates His promises. We live in a fast-paced world, and we want God to respond with the same efficiency we expect from high-speed computers. We are not inclined to think through the delays in Scripture: Moses’ forty years in the back side of the wilderness, the delay of twenty or more years before Joseph is vindicted, the anguish even of the saints under the altar (Rev. 6:9-10).
But God is not contrained by our petty timetables. Committed though He is to His people’s good, He well understands that delays are not always bad. Moreover, if we walk with God long enough, we begin to learn the lesson ourselves: we look back from a longer perspective and start to appreciate that God’s timing is best. We may then marvel at our own impatience. We are too much like children whose every request is stamped with ‘Now!’”
–D.A. Carson, How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990/2006), 25-6.
