Slow Work

Back in February I, like many, made the trek to Asbury University to glimpse the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on their campus. While I was there, one of the chaplains shared the multitude of prayers being answered and asked us, "What is your audacious ask?"

My answer was the very thing I was experiencing. 

For years God has broken and burdened my heart for the division within the body of believers. We've let lesser things become higher and been torn apart. We've led with judgement instead of grace. We've been ashamed to associate with the believers who do not think like us.

I've poured out page after page in my prayer journal interceding for the body of Christ. Praying for Oneness. For us to recenter on God. For us to become whole. For us to allow our diversity to breed an even greater unity instead of relying on sameness to create a passive and broken replica. 

My prayers were not ones of belief but of agony. I did not think it was possible for us to change, but I knew we were broken. And so I continued to pray for impossible healing as the culture wars within the Church raged on. 

I entered the doors of Hughes Auditorium to a teaching on John 17--on unity within the Church--and that is what I found in my brief time at Asbury.

I saw a glimpse of heaven. I saw believers identifying themselves and each other by their shared identity and not by their differences. I saw humble and repentant hearts acknowledging their faults and asking for forgiveness instead of dishing out judgement. I saw a myriad of people from different demographics and walks of life, and I heard them lifting up one voice before God.

This was the answer to my prayers.

And until the day of restoration, that answer is incomplete. Division will still threaten our unity, and we will give in. But we can have unity; I've seen what it looks like. And we will have unity. One day Christ will return, and we will be restored. And until that day, we can still make progress towards God and towards each other; He is working in our hearts. 

He is answering my audacious ask.

And I am so thankful that God works slowly.

2 Peter 3:9 says, "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." 

This is our assurance that God is working even when He seems slow. He is bringing forth greater restoration, but that restoration isn't only for those who are saved in the process.

We are encouraged in the slow work of God. We are steadied. We are taught, and His faithfulness becomes more real to us.

My mentor recently encouraged me to write a list of the qualities I want in my future husband--not so that I can hold him to perfection but so that I can see God's faithfulness by seeing how much of that list He fulfilled.

These slow answers to our hard prayers can offer the same glimpse of God's kindness though the journey is different.

All those prayers that released my frustrations, my discouragements, my unbelief can reveal God's faithfulness when I encounter His answer. All the prayers of earthly impossibility show what is possible in God. Anything that I said couldn't happen can measure up against the God who made it happen. 

And if He can fulfill those prayers--the ones I didn't believe were possible, the ones that made me feel broken--He can fulfill the next audacious ask. He is capable, and He is kind.

And it's because of the slowness of His work, because of the heartache that I experienced, that I can know His faithfulness in a bold way even in the midst of my unbelief. That I can pray the next bold prayer. And every punctuation of impossibility can be met in even greater power by the exclamation of His faithfulness.

He is not slow as we count slowness.