August 16, 2026

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I AM, God Almighty. Walk before Me faithfully and be blameless. Then I will make My covenant between Me and you, and I will greatly increase your numbers.’” (Genesis 17.1-2)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Patience: trusting in God’s timing; setting our watch by His will. The story of David becoming King of Israel is an excellent example of the blessing of patience. God had David in mind when the nation of Israel refused to be led by judges. David wasn’t even born when Saul was “made” king. Remembering that God submitted to the will of the people not because they had authority over Him as to how they should govern themselves but that He had a sense of instruction. Sometimes, we must learn in the hardest possible way. That is not by God’s choice but our own. Being impatient, and seeking to assert our personal life desires over and against God’s for our lives, we often make the absolute worst decisions. We have reflected on that in the life choices which Abram had made. David was born in the eleventh year of Saul’s reign as king of Israel. He would not be anointed king of Israel by Samuel for approximately 12 years. (I propose that David was anointed what he was thirteen, but that is just a storyteller’s understanding of the consistency of ages and divine revelations such as we spoke of previously about God waiting thirteen years before reconfirming His promise to Abram that he would have a son and a true heir.) David would “wait” fifteen to twenty years before actually becoming king of Israel following the death of Saul. That time of “waiting” was bound in service to God for the sake of the people of Israel. We can read in Psalm 40.1 that sense of waiting patiently: “I waited patiently for the Lord and He inclined His ear to me and heard my cry.” In light of this, I want to reflect upon the two statements I presented at the beginning of this reflection as food for thought about patience.

Patience as trusting in God’s timing. There is much debate about the concept of “time” as it appears in scripture. The most obvious debate is about the age of the earth as some would claim it is only 6000+ years old versus the geological evidence of billions of years. The attempt to chronologically date the earth based on the traditional years using the genealogies in the Bible would give us a sense of the first. It would then predicate that God literally took six days to create all that there was. And while I do take the Bible literally, that does not mean that I would be limited to the human definition of words to sustain the biblical vocabulary. It is countered by scripture where God declares through Peter that “a thousand years is as a day and a day is as a thousand years with the Lord.” (2 Peter 3.8) Or Paul writing to the Corinthians about the instantaneous transformation of all believers when the final trumpet of the Lord shall sound as being “...in a twinkling of an eye.” (1 Corinthians 15.52) We humans truly do limit our understanding of God’s timing. So, we measure the efficacy of God’s answers by prompt responses and lament our desire to be faithful or assume something is wrong when there is a delay. We must trust in God’s timing. Everything has a reason. The realization of that reason takes time. How much time only God truly knows. We certainly can delay that time by making assuming or irrational decisions and not following God’s instruction to live as those in righteousness. None of us are perfect; “…for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3.23) Consider the perfect timing of Jesus’ life and ministry. He abided by a pace of life which served the purposes of God for our sake. Jesus listened to God’s spiritual clock for His own life. He knew when it was time to come and go. He dwelt in the “fullness of time.” He trusted in God’s timing. It doesn’t mean it was easy; but it was always right (such as waiting four days before heading to Bethany to tend to Mary and Martha upon the death of Lazarus their brother.) God is the author of time. He gives us time to dwell in its fullness.

Patience as setting our watch by His will. Of course, I am using a phrase “our watch” with a double meaning. We set our watches to the right time or to synchronize our time pieces with the correct time or to make sure we are all on the same time. That would mean that if we are aligned with God’s will, as Jesus was, we would abide in perfect harmony with our purpose and God’s desire. If we did that, then we would have a true understanding of “having the time of our lives.” It wouldn’t be in the world’s pleasure but in the joy of God’s design according to His Kingdom will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Jesus taught His disciples to pray for this truth as well as to abide in it. They didn’t have “watches” or time pieces, they measured time by the path of the Sun across the sky for each day and night and for every season. So, it only makes literary sense that they understood and would understand the passage of time by “following the Son of God.”

Yet, there is another way to understand the word “watch.” A “watch” is a time of providing guard against the enemy. Time is not merely a matter of minutes or hours. Time is also a descriptor of work not necessarily in duration but in activity. It is the execution of mission and purpose. The phrase reflects 1 Corinthians 10:31, which teaches that every concept can be seen as ‘eating, drinking, or anything else—should be done for God’s glory’ and aligns with Colossians 3:23, which urges believers to ‘work wholeheartedly as serving the Lord.’ It is important to measure our patience and our desire to be patient by the work and the attitude we invest in that work with the will of God for us individually and corporately. So often, we think of our salvation as something we earn. It is not. Salvation is a gift which was bestowed on us out of God’s grace because we put our faith and trust in Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. As we put on our salvation, we adopt the identity of being children of God. This means we reflect the will and identity of God our Father best exampled to us in human terms by Jesus Himself. This means that we live, act and serve as Jesus did when He was on earth. He lived out His Father’s will on earth just as He did in Heaven. This does not mean He did the things on earth as if they were being done in Heaven. It does mean that He did so with the same intent and purpose of honoring and glorifying God. When we think of what we do in standing against the enemy of God and humanity, we are practicing our patience by being on watch. Standing watch against the enemy in all of his manifestations requires patience, trust and obedience.

TODAY’S PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness endeavor, but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.