Why Does God Wait?

Why did God wait until I was 24 to send me to a country I’ve had on my heart since I was a child?

Why did God wait until 23 to put people in my life  that would be the final push before running back to Him?

Why would God wait til I leave America to show me things I could have benefitted from seeing when I was there?

We arrived in Japan after about 36 hours of travel from Georgia, to Toronto, to Tokyo, to Shinjuku to Ishinomaki. I was waiting for some grand gesture from the squad or from the world to announce:

“THIS. IS. IT. WELCOME TO THE WORLD RACE!”

It never came. 

Instead, we stepped off an overnight bus into large, slow-moving snowflakes in a quiet town near a train station as students in uniforms trailed in and out of the train, hurrying off to their schools. 

Our ministry hosts picked us up and took us to their cafe where we sat, exhausted, and bewildered watching the snowflakes thicken outside of foggy windows with a faint worship song being strummed on guitar in the background.

Why did God wait until 1/3 of my month was up to show me what our REAL ministry was, while I was in a Japanese Hot Spring with 3 other women?

(Spoiler alert, it was the ministry hosts we had, not JUST the people in the community they serve)

”This means that, contrary to man’s perspective, the Lord is not late with his promise to return, as some measure lateness. But rather, his “delay” simply reveals his loving patience toward you, because he does not want any to perish but all to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9

An old sermon at my church comes to mind, with the rebounding takeaway:

“It’s never too late for something but it could be too early.”

So there will be a day where you don’t wake up to your alarm, then you notice your ”check engine“ light is on in your car for the third time this month, someone left dishes piled, pay day is over a week away and you only have hot pockets in your freezer because you want to save money, someone will cancel plans 10 minutes before you’re supposed to meet and you’ll feel really single, be in the middle of fighting with your best friend and just feel the exhaustion of being a human.

and you’ll just ask 

“W H Y?!”

Crummy truth? We don’t get to know that.

God doesn’t have to make sense. His ways don’t have to be fun or comfortable for us. But the second we see that AHA! Moment, connecting the tiny. Little. Dots. We get to rest in knowing

He just gets it.

Not even in the fairytale, everyday “Jesus loves YOU” way, But he gets you, and hears you and knows exactly when you can handle something you’ve been wanting or questioning. 

And the best part is we don’t even have to like that – we get to kick and scream and cry, or we get to rejoice and sing and laugh and sit in that glow. Either way, He’ll do it again. And again. And again. And again. 

And maybe it will take you flying to a small fishing town in Japan at 10:30pm, sitting in a quiet coffee shop at 24  to pinpoint those moments and see the thread of God’s work in your life, and sigh a breath of relief that it was alllll worth it.

And maybe each of those days were given to you to be able to talk to ONE person ONE time for ONE hour and  show them love in a way they’ve never seen before.