How long?

Then I said, "Lord, how long?" And He answered: "Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, The houses are without a man, The land is utterly desolate,  - Isaiah 6v11

I am not one for asking God what to do then running to my Bible, flopping it open, pointing to a verse, and taking that for an answer. It can be like the old joke about the person who did that. When the opened the Bible the first thing he saw was ‘and Judas went and hung himself.’ Not being satisfied he flipped a few more pages and read ‘go thou and do likewise.’

While that may be a joke it does express the danger of just grabbing a particular verse and making a decision.

However, there are times when God can answer a prayer for our specific circumstance by using another similar one in scripture.  

Almost exactly nine years ago I was sick of this ministry. I was looking for any excuse to quit. If I had the slightest indication from God that I could go I would have jumped at it. If someone had bought us one way tickets back to America I would have gone. All it would have taken was the slightest nudge in that direction.

I walked out of the shower one morning. I was so mad at God that I was fuming. I don’t know if I said it out loud or not, but I said ‘What do you want from me God? How long do you expect me to stay here and put up this?!’

I went to my computer to check my email. (This was back before I got email alerts on my phone J ) My friend Dwayne and I were exchanging devotions be email. He had studied this verse. I am afraid that I don’t even remember his thoughts. All I saw was ‘I said Lord, how long?’ BAM! That grabbed my attention! ‘Okay,’ I thought, ‘how long?’

Then the next words, ‘Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, The houses are without a man, The land is utterly desolate.’

I was stunned! I had always preached on deputation about God’s call and Isaiah’s response so this was a very clear answer. God might as well have said ‘Okay Roger, you said you would go. You just asked Me how long I wanted you to stay. Here’s my answer.’

God does not call us to run a 100 metre sprint. He calls us to triathlons where we run the race with patience. Stay at the task.

How long? Till the job is done!