My dog hates to wait. So do I.
How’s your summer treating you? Our temps in North Carolina have ramped up significantly in the last week – so much so that I’ve had to make a major adjustment to our family’s schedule.
I work from home, and although my days are filled with online meetings, I can typically step out for a short mid-morning walk with the dog. This timing has benefits for both of us: he can do his morning business, and I can get a moment to clear my head away from talking to people on a computer screen. If the morning is crazy-hectic, he may have to wait until lunchtime (but that’s a rarity). He also normally gets walked after I log off for the day at 5:00pm.
Our pup loves this schedule, and if we deviate from it, he is certain to let me know. First, he’ll come bump my leg with his nose. If that doesn’t get me up and moving, he’ll try whining a little bit. Then, he’ll escalate to just flat-out staring at me…off the side of my desk, with his eyes just barely above the edge, not blinking. Just eye pressure. Willing me to pay attention and take him outside. His requests for the 5:00pm walk can start as early as 3:30pm, but they certainly intensify if we haven’t left by a little after our usual 5:00pm schedule.
However…the recent heat has forced us to change our schedule. Now, we get a walk in before I start working and before the sun bears down on us – and of course, he doesn’t mind at all going out early. But the after work walk? That’s been pushed well into the evening, waiting until the sun is nearly gone for the day. It’s just too hot for him otherwise. The scorching pavement on his paws and the thick, humid air while walking around the neighborhood has him panting and overheated in no time. So, we wait.
But like I said, he doesn’t like to wait. In fact, he’s whining a bit right now as I type this out (it’s 5:47pm). Not because he needs to do his business, but because he just wants to go and sniff and explore. He doesn’t understand thermometer readings and heat indexes and the fact that extreme heat causes the most weather-related deaths in the US each year. He just wants what he wants, and he expects me to provide it for him.
You’ve probably already drawn the same parallel and conclusion that I have. When it comes to how I want God to intervene in my life…I can be a lot like my dog. I don’t like to wait. I’m certain my schedule is the best schedule. I tend to whine if I don’t get what I want, when I think I should get it. Never mind that God understands the real temperature of the situation and my ability to handle it at the moment…
Our ability to wait on God’s timing isn’t so much a lack of patience on our part. Rather, it’s a lack of trust in God doing His part on His timing. That stings a little bit, doesn’t it? Yeah, me too.
King Solomon pointed this out in his collection of wisdom sayings:
Proverbs 19:2 (NIV)
Desire without knowledge is not good – how much more will hasty feet miss the way!
If my dog has hasty feet and tries to run outside when the door opens, he’s going to be met with a humid wall of heat that could cause him problems. If we get hasty feet and run ahead of what God intends for us, we will miss the way He had planned for us to walk. For me, running ahead of God has always led to more heartache than I anticipated. While recovery and redemption are available, God always prefers that we make the wise choice and avoid the broken paths.
And sometimes, the wise choice is to wait.
Keep Pressing,
Ken