‘Actually, sometimes God IS late’
Please don’t cancel me for saying this but I wish our Father in Heaven would not operate on what has historically been known as Black People Time*
Many Christians, too many in my opinion, like to Pinterest a verse in the Bible in Habakkuk (I know, great name) 2:3b which reads, ‘Though he linger, wait for him…’. And so what people have done is say well don’t worry if things aren’t working out atm, because God is never late. Well, well-read theologians and church leaders, this uneducated style icon wannabe begs to differ.
When we issue out platitudes like that to the very real issue of human suffering, I think we underestimate the pain of the person we are hoping to support, and, in a way, do the nature of faith a disservice. To the person who longs for a baby and has been trying for years; the person who is repeatedly turned down for a job; the person who is trying to set up a business but constantly faces closed doors from banks and investors; the person who wants to get married while their parents are still around to see it; the person whose cancer diagnosis throws a spanner in their plans to stay healthy and well in order to see their grandchildren grow up. To those people, we, the Church say: ‘Don’t worry! God is never late!’
No.
God is late. Sometimes.
We love a celebratory end to a taxing journey
The thing is, as much as I love and support those miracle stories of people who have had things turn around at the 11th hour, ask anyone with a 10pm curfew; 11pm is late. In the magazine I edit, we publish incredible tales of people having babies at 50 or getting planning permission after spending years and thousands of pounds on lawyers and paperwork. We love a celebratory end to a taxing journey, and this is also something we often see played out on our screens in the form of the Hollywood Happy Ever After.
So, I think perhaps maybe it is not quite a full truth to say that God is always on time. It was my daughter Annie’s birthday last week – not something I really celebrate since she passed away a few hours after birth a decade ago. But as I remembered her I thought about a prayer from a friend following that difficult time. She prayed specifically that I would give birth to a living child or children, ‘sooner than you think’. And I thought it would happen every month that I was still with Annie’s father and my then husband. I thought it would happen when I met someone else in the years following. It hasn’t.
by my estimation, it would still be late
And I love and believe that God is a supernatural being who is not bound to the rules of the world that we live in. But even if I did have a child today (unlikely – I’m not pregnant and I have deadlines), by my estimation, it would still be late.
And surely the thing with faith – the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen – is that it doesn’t come with a receipt or a timeline.
In my experience, God’s timing is God’s timing and no attempt at a formulaic connection with our human sense of time, is going to make sense of that.
We
just
have
to
wait.
Tola x
I’m the editor and creative director at Premier Woman Alive and co-host of the YouTube show Sisterhood. In 2019, I delivered a TEDx Talk on Debunking the Myth of Success and my first book, 'Still Standing:100 Lessons From An 'Unsuccessful' Life' is out now.