Learning Patience and Trust

2005-10-24

All comes at the proper time to him who knows how to wait.

St. Vincent dePaul

I received a small card with this quotation on it, along with Proverbs 3:5 on it many years ago from a nice gentleman I knew only for a short time. Though I do not know the context of what dePaul was speaking, to me it is a timeless phrase with much wisdom. The one who gave me the card said to me, “God’s saving someone special for you.” This is patience! For at the forefront of my prayers was to find a godly woman who is willing to serve the Lord in any way He might want her to. Immediately my prayer turns inward that I might be a godly man who does the same! But because the phrase is so universal in life in learning to trust God, I will turn to the phrase and think about it in any context of life.

Since it is God’s decree of when things ultimately happen, and He wants to give us great things as a Father gives to His children (Matthew 7:7-11), then either two things will happen. We can trust in Him for Him to complete His perfect work, or we can not trust God and try to handle things in our own effort. And as a reminder for all of us who forget the obvious, the latter does not work. God has decreed the time for all things, and we must constantly remind ourselves of this. Whether it is finding a wife, an opportunity for evangelism, seeking a job, or whatever: it will be in God’s time. That last word ‘wait’ in dePaul’s quotation could be replaced with ‘trust.’ This is the life-long journey of learning to trust God.