Waiting for help

Sometimes our problem is impatience, not lack of help. Imagine an Israelite during their days of Egyptian enslavement, fervently petitioning the Almighty for the help of deliverance…daily. Now further imagine if these entreaties grew more impatient and intense daily, as the scourge of the Egyptians amplified in truculence. Now I want you to picture a desperate Israelite on the verge of losing hope and faith because the increasing brutalities is unmatched by any indication of help.

However, as you imagine this, I want you to also imagine Moses…unbeknownst to the Israelite…already born, but of an infant age of 2! You can imagine that, no matter how intense the prayers of an Israelite are, there is nothing, literally nothing, the Almighty can do to quicken the earthly development of a baby Moses to the point he can rescue them from Egypt at a mature age. The impatient Israelite does not know this, but the solution is on the horizon, plans are already in place, so the only thing, literally the only thing to do is… await the appointed hour! The Almighty cannot alter the Laws of Development to bring help in the way the Israelite believes. Hence, he must wait, must be patient.

But here we must also clarify something. The waiting is not in dull expectancy, but active preparation. For we humans often believe, like the Israelite assumed, that just because their prayers are fervent and intense…they are ready for the promised deliverance. But this is delusion, a rancid miscalculation of human presumption. For the “hardships” during this period of “waiting” is meant to mature and purify the said human being. To assist him in cultivating the right attitude needed to adjust himself to the help when it comes. This is captured in how easily the Israelites started grumbling in the desert, how they were agitating, how they formed a golden calf, and how they even retrogressed after reaching the Promised Land. So comprehensive was their failure that, centuries later, they even murdered Jesus in hostility. So it means they invested more energy praying and chattering than they did purifying and maturing themselves spiritually. Otherwise the outcome would be different.

This clearly shows they had not adequately used the “brutalities” to mature to the level that was necessary to properly use the help through Moses. But, sulking like little children who assumed they were ready for the help, just prayed and prayed impatiently as if the only delay was the help of the Almighty. But no, the only delay was their immaturity of spirit during the time of preparation.

Consequently, that is how we are today. Hoping for help, praying for help, asking for guidance…but all this assumes we are mature enough for the promised help. Any impatience during the period of “waiting” always means we are not (I repeat, are not) using the period of waiting to properly mature and purify ourselves. The “help” is coming, is already ordained, is being prepared, but we must use the period of “situational captivity” to mature, to grow strong, otherwise in our human presumption of impatience and anxiousness we will fail miserably when the time comes that must find us ready.

~Ikenna Q Ezealah