My mom recently brought in two lemon trees and they’ve been watered consistently for the most part. At the moment there’s nothing to show that they are lemon trees, just their leaves. I mean, its their season… our neighbour has so many lemons – she doesn’t know what to do with them, whilst two of our trees are bare.

I’ve never observed a fruit tree grow from scratch, the mango tree was planted way before I existed so I never really got to observe the time taken for it to start producing fruit. I realised that almost everything we’re exposed to nowadays happens in what seems like an instant. With the exception of some groups, you don’t see how the food on your plate came to be: you didn’t plant and harvest the maize, you didn’t rear the cattle, you didn’t plant the vegetables or fruits you eat. Someone else did the hard hours and you bought the food conveniently at a supermarket.

Instant oats, 2-minute noodles and a bunch of other things in our modern world really take out the waiting component.

My favourite depiction of things appearing to happen so fast, montage.

Montage is a film editing technique in which a series of short shots are sequenced to condense space, time, and information

Wikipedia

Montages where they have songs like Survivor’s legendary “Eye of the Tiger” playing in the background, six months worth of training for a big game or studying for a final are condensed into a minute or two.

How about this montage from Disney’s “The Lion King” where we saw Simba transition from a cub to a full grown lion in a few minutes.

via GIPHY

Looking at the biographies of successful people: 15 years of blood, sweat and tears can be a 3-minute read and the years of growth that molded your favourite preachers can be condensed into an hour or forty five minutes.

The supermarkets, the montages, the accounts people give of their lives – these can make the big deals in life look like they took a relatively short time because we receive the information (or the food) in a short space of time. When you’re walking down your path and you’re waiting for your big break you can end up feeling demotivated if you overlook the time component.

Have you observed people who start something like going to gym, reading their Bible, starting a revision plan or start a skin care regime and on day 1 they are already looking for results? People who do one day of cardio and look in the mirror to see if they’ve shed off some kilograms. People who do one hour of revision and expect to instantly move from an E to an A* in their academic performance. I used the legendary rice water solution on my hair and a day later I was trying to look out for any visible growth. LOL.

via GIPHY

Waiting is not easy and it is so easy to give up because whatever is being cooked up for you is taking “too long” because we’ve been conditioned to get instant results take a look at weight-loss concoctions, hair growth serums and the like, their selling point is “see immediate results, instant progress”

That’s our nature, we want to see a rapid response, immediate results, instant gratification. The “it’s taking too long” mentality is due to our limited carnal thinking especially when we have to rely on God’s timing. We can handle waiting for a definite amount of time: an hour for a cake, 4 years to get a degree, but God’s timing does not take heed of our logic and expectations. Your breakthrough, deliverance or your blessing will not arrive at a time you think is convenient, it will come to pass when God decides its time, just trust Him.

But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:31 New King James Version (NKJV)

The lyrics of this song really touched my heart. Jesus accomplished a great deal by dying on the cross for us but that didn’t happen until a very long time had passed. He didn’t emerge as a grown man ready to bear the brunt of our burdens, He was a child, He grew and then He saved us. That is the God we serve.

For all I know of seasons
Is that You take Your time
You could have saved us in a second
Instead You sent a child, oh

Hillsong Worship, Seasons

In closing just focus on the last 3 seconds of this video.