“If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come” – Job 14:14 .
Waiting is something that no one likes to do. When you walk into a shop or go for a doctor’s appointment, you don’t want to waste your time. Yes, we look at waiting time as a waste of time! You want to be attended to immediately, especially in this jet age where everything is on the fast side – we have fast food, speed post, express service & delivery, etc. But do you know that waiting time is never a wasted time? Neither should it be an idle time! It should rather be a time of training and preparation; a time of service – call it internship if you like because it is a time when you have the opportunity to gain some practical life experiences.
There are three ways we can wait for change. One way is to wait in Apathy, another is to wait in Anxiety and the third is to wait in Anticipation. Let us examine waiting in Apathy.
Apathy
The World English Dictionary defines Apathy as lack of enthusiasm or energy: lack of interest in anything, or the absence of any wish to do anything.
Apathy could be described as ‘I don’t care anymore’ attitude. It is a state where your faith in God has grown so cold as a result of a long wait for an expected miracle or visitation from God. The long wait makes you presume that God is not interested in you or your case. You throw in the towel, that is, you give up, saying to yourself that ‘what will be, will be’. You stop believing God and even start doubting testimonies of the goodness of God that you hear people share. It was apathy that made Sarah laugh at herself in Genesis 17:12 when the Lord said she was going to be pregnant at 89 years of age.
Apathy is no surprise to God, because He already said in His word that “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life – Proverbs 13:12.” So if God knows that if our hope is deferred, if there is a delay in receiving a promise from Him, our heart could get sick (that is we could give up believing Him and give in to despair), why then does He still allow our hope to be deferred and make us wait?
I strongly believe that a very good reason why God would allow our hope to be deferred and allow us to wait; is to help us learn patience. Another good reason is to build up our strength. “If you fail in the day of adversity, your strength is small – Proverbs 24:10.” The natural tendency for man is to go into apathy if his hope is deferred, or there is some long wait. But this should not be the case for the people of faith who do not see with the physical eyes, but with the eyes of the spirit. As a person of faith, you should have your spirit connected to the Spirit of God, so that even if there is some waiting to do, you would receive signals and grace from the Spirit of God. As you do this, you would realise that you are strengthened in the days of adversity because you will begin to see light at the other end of the tunnel and hope, therefore, will not extinguished.
Your tenacity to wait without giving up hope is determined by your spiritual strength. That is to say, the rate at which you give up – throw in the towel in the face of difficult challenges is a measure of your strength. Will you get back to God and refrain from Apathy?
