Winning with Patience
I’m writing this blog from the back of a sweaty and stinky wrestling room. Actually, I’ve done a lot of writing here all spring, summer, and fall (summer with no air conditioning in a room where the mats shined with sweat. Yuck!). All of the offseason work was to prepare for the official season, beginning next week, with a good chance for my son to make states this year.
It got me thinking: is winning important? I admit that I’m the softy who tells my son to just “go have fun,” but am I sending the right message?
What I love about wrestling is that it teaches kids to handle winning and losing because they will lose one match, get up, shake it off, and wrestle again and win. But what if winning was everything? If we’re talking about salvation—someone’s eternal life hanging in the balance and the difference between living under the oppressive bondage of sin or walking in freedom—then my tune changes to “GO! FIGHT! WIN!
Many will say it’s not about church attendance numbers, and I agree. It’s not about the numbers. It’s about the souls. I remember our first year of attending Connect when my husband and I were asked to be part of a prayer group focused on salvations and church growth. We prayed hard and believed for a packed service, but the following Sunday, we had only a handful of new guests.
My limited perspective had focused on the here and now. But God was thinking bigger and further. I didn’t have the vision that God would bring crowds ten years later, but God did. Back then, my brain couldn’t have conceived what a remote location even was, but God was strategically playing the long game. Our small 100-member church is now over 1,000, with three Sunday services and two remote campuses.
The problem is I’m not patient. I want prayer results, now.
Living in New England, if we plant in October we won’t see a single leaf on a bush or tree for seven months. That’s a long time to wait for results, but planting in the fall allows the tree to put down a root system that will give it an advantage in the spring and even more so for the dry season of summer.
Our prayers sow in the soil of good faith. God is faithful. He will turn all things around for His good. He has guaranteed us victory through Christ Jesus, but sometimes the timing is different than we expect, and often how God goes about it is different than we anticipated. The key is to keep sowing in faith, stay hopeful, and watchful while waiting. Things are happening beneath the surface that we cannot see. Roots are growing, and a harvest will come.
Thankfully, God is patient. 2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” God wants to win souls. He is patently waiting for his children to return to Him.
Things may not happen in our timing or in the way we would envision, but God will take the win farther than we could ever imagine.