We want results. And we want them fast. The trouble is we often have to wait. Whether in traffic, at the deli counter, at the pharmacy, at a restaurant, in a conversation, or for a website to load–we have to wait for things.
This is a problem for most of us. We tend to not like to wait. Conditioned by the technological improvements of our microwave society we have a reflex where we feel entitled expediency.
As a pastor I feel this pinch of impatience in a pronounced way. Pastors work all week-long putting their heart, mind and souls into their teachings for the week. Every time we open the Bible to preach God’s Word we feel as though it is the most important thing that we have ever said and will ever say. Preaching and teaching the Bible is an urgent and important matter. Like the Old Testament prophets we have a tremendous burden from the Lord that needs to be preached, heard, received and applied.
But here is the tension: we go to bed on Sunday night and wake up Monday morning and nothing has changed. We meet with the same people during the week and they seem like the same people. We see them again on the next Lord’s Day and they still seem the same. We want to microwave sanctification but we can’t. It takes time, oftentimes a lifetime.
This is why one of the most important decisions that the preacher will make each week will come on Sunday night before he goes to sleep. He has to be able to go to close his eyes patiently trusting that God will work. In the parable of the soils we see the helpful reminder that the sower goes to sleep each day and then eventually he sees growth.
“And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how.” (Mark 4:26–27, ESV)
The pastor has to come to grips with the fact that he did his job to preach the Word of God and that God will, in his time, do his job to cause the seed to grow.
This is so hard for us in a microwave society. We want to go to sleep counting the conversions and thinking about the lives so evidently transformed by the text preached in the morning. But if we are honest this would often put the spotlight on us rather than God. In the case of patiently closing our eyes with trust in God, we find ourselves looking to him for the growth. And if we do this then we will look to him for the praise as well.
As I try to learn and relearn this lesson I have found that the most important time of my week is not simply Sunday morning before I preach but Sunday night after I preach. I must trust God in both and not look to myself, trusting in the arm of flesh. Week after week passes and slowly the sprouts come. First we see the blade, then the ear, then the blade in the ear (Mk. 4.28). We labor then we sleep; and God works. And we praise him for it.
