Fourteen Years?

Galatians 2:1 Then after fourteen years I went again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me.

Paul is recounting his second trip to Jerusalem.

My mind plays a lot of tricks on me and I am beginning to suspect that I'm not very smart. For whatever reason, my mind condenses down the time it took for the events in the bible to take place. The book of Acts tells of events that took place over at least a thirty year span of time. In my mind however, it took about a year. No one told me that, that's just the way I want to see it. The result is that I see the Church growing like wildfire and Paul rushing about the Mediterranean like Elijah in 1 Kings 18: 46, which is a really funny picture to me. And this is the standard I hold myself and all of you to as well. We must do a lifetime of work in a few days. Simply put, I'm impatient. I can't understand why The Bridge isn't a mega-church after meeting a couple of years. After preaching a hand full of times over a couple of years, it seems to me that I should have started a global revival. Things should be happening faster! To see Paul reference fourteen years brings me back into reality a little. Even though I don't like to give them time, things take time. God is eternal and infinite, He is not in as big a rush as Hugh is. There is probably an ego issue working here as well. I want to hurry up and get done so people can see what a good job I did. Anyway, there is certainly a lesson for me in this. I grew up watching TV and in those shows things always work out in 30 minutes or an hour. It's not that way in the real world. If I am to humbly walk with my Lord, I must travel at His pace and have no agenda of my own. In my experience, when I have done this He never wastes time, I just don't always understand what He is doing.

Lord God, please grant that I might learn to follow You, doing the next right thing over and over, in no hurry to be anywhere other than in Your grace. Amen.