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Have you ever said: “Lord, it’s enough! When are you going to do something about this? Why are you waiting so long?” Well, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t asked those questions of God at some time or another in their Christian walk. I certainly have.
When it looks as though God has waited too long to answer your prayers, you need to stop and realize that his purposes may be quite different from yours. Frequently before he responds to your need, he has to adjust you to the trouble and help you learn a much-needed lesson. Maybe he wants to teach you that you can face and endure trouble as long as he is with you in the trouble. Then he will take you out of it. But it will not happen until you have stopped being restless and fretful about it. He may be waiting for you to be calm and quiet. Then he can say, “It is enough.”
Paul Billheimer wrote in Adventures in Adversity: “There can be no testing of character without delays…By this means, during delay, God is testing and developing character. It is easy to be impatient with God when we fail to understand the purpose of his delay. However, God is willing to be misunderstood in the universe he has made, in order to achieve his purpose of character development.”
I recall a three-year delay God gave me, when I so wanted to leave a job I was in. And if I had left when I wanted to, I would have missed three years of personal development that have been essential to my walk with God and the ministry he has given me. The tough lessons I learned then molded my character like none others.
When it was finally over, I wrote in my journal: “I praise you that it is now enough. My time in this job is over, but I praise you that it did not end until you had completed your work in me.” It’s easy to say that at the end, but difficult to say it in the middle, isn’t it?
If you’re in that predicament, wondering why God hasn’t done anything yet, try to remember that the day will come when you can look back and see how he was developing you in that time. Someday he’ll say to you, “It is enough now.” Until then, keep trusting and believing that he waits so that he can be gracious unto you.