I confess…I was eavesdropping. It was on a father and his small son. I heard the incessant dripping of question after question streaming out of the little lad’s mouth. Barely an answer dribbled from the dad when another question would flood the father’s already overloaded senses.
I thought about our questions to God. How often aren’t we satisfied with our heavenly Father’s answers? We ask for healing. The answer is “Wait,” for His timing is often different than ours. We ask for things. The answer is “No,” because that’s not what we need. We ask for patience. His answer is “Yes,” but not in a way we like: “…because we know that suffering produces patience…” (Romans 5:3)
This earthly father I overheard was more patient than I’m afraid I was in similar situations with my sons when they were small. Our Father God is also patient. He is “longsuffering;” a good King James Bible word.
The Hebrew word is “chesed.” It means “faultless, unfailing, faithful, persistent, patient, lasting love”--obviously hard to translate. This word appears over 100 times just in Psalms, and over 250 times in the Old Testament.
But the Bible says, amazingly, there is an end to God’s patience: “I will not contend with man forever…” (Genesis 6:3). But still, God lovingly, patiently gave man a 120 year life-span back then to have time to get his act together.
Exodus chapters 7-11 reveal that God was patient with the evil King of Egypt that had enslaved God’s people. But King Pharaoh kept hardening his heart toward God and the nation of Israel (Exodus 7:13-14, 22-23; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 34-35). Eventually the Lord warned Pharaoh: “You’ve made your bed; now I’m going to let you lie in it,” (my paraphrase). So “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart” (Exodus 9:12; 10:1, 27; 11:10).
The same thing happened in the biblical book of Romans, where people were rebuked by God about their downward spiral into sin. Three times came this admonishment: “…so God gave them over…” (Romans 1:21-32). “Let them go the destructive direction they have shown they want to go.” [Again, my paraphrase.]
It’s not a pretty thing when we exhaust the persistent, patient love of God.
