So Ava, my beautiful, loving daughter, asks me the other day, “what’s taking so long?” For what? I asked. “You fixing me my breakfast,” she yelled. It was only funny because she hadn’t asked me to fix her anything to eat. But, now that she decided she was all of a sudden hungry, she wanted it right now!

She has definitely become accustomed to our “have it now” culture at only 4 years old. I guess I should be surprised she hasn’t shown more of those darling demanding tendencies before now.

Amazon has helped us as adults to somewhat satisfy our “can’t wait” mentalities. But the one who will not be pawed at to succumb to our whims and selfish ways is God. I was reading a book in which the author wrote, “Humility waits on God’s best, and resists forcing things to happen.” I thought that was pretty neat because we are all about forcing things to happen so “our” will would be done. Questions arise such as where should we live, what will I do for work, where should the children go to school, or how will we take care of our aging parents. These are not small decisions. Most of us might say that many of our adult choices are not easy ones. Perhaps there aren’t necessarily right or wrong answers to our questions, just apt solutions that seem to come too slowly from God. At least too slowly for us in this society today, right?

God’s word helps to lead us in lessons having to do with humility. Humility, that word we despise almost as much as the word “poor.” Teaches us that there is another that knows more than we do, one that has plans for our lives that are better than ours, one that cares for the birds of the air and the beasts of the fields, so how much more will he care for “his children?”

Some people would say, you can’t fit a square peg in a round hole, but I’ve seen kids make it happen. They just force it in there. I know you’ve seen it too. It doesn’t slide right through though; it gets stuck. When we are too proud, when we think more of ourselves than we ought, we don’t wait for God’s best; we force things to happen. When we do, we inevitably get stuck, squeezed too tight, and have to be hit over the head really hard to get free. I think the peg would say it sort of hurts. Be humble, be still, and wait on God’s best. It will always, always, always be better than ours!

Blessings, Tim.

Tim Beck is pastor of Kenbridge United Methodist Church. His email address is revtimbeck@gmail.com.