We All Want a Honko-second Kind Of Delivery~

I was reading one of my daily feeds and ran into an interesting concept; there is now something called a honko-second! This is "the time between when the light changes and the person behind you honks his horn",  to Robert Levine in his book, A Geography of Time. Levine says that this is the smallest measure of time known to science. It is not only known to science, it is known to all of us who wait in line for the traffic light to change and when it does, before we can get our foot off the brake, the person behind us has already began honking their horn. Our impatient culture is always in a hurry – that’s not throwing stones, that applies to all of us at some point or time. 

It was of interest to me when I put in the word, ‘instant" that I quickly got back several scriptures that in a contemporary version have the word instant in them. One of them is from Acts 3:6-8 (MSG):

Peter said, "I don’t have a nickel to my name, but what I do have, I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!" He grabbed him by the right hand and pulled him up. In an instant his feet and ankles became firm. He jumped to his feet and walked.

 Imagine, a crippled man who had been at the gate of the temple for a very long time begging for alms, all of sudden is told to get up and "in an instant" his lame condition was healed and he could jump to his feet and go about his way. What a tremendous response to the simple words of Peter. Yet, if we search it out, this impatient Peter had a three-year crash course in learning how to follow the Spirit of God, and even failed when given his "final" (in Gethsemane, and at the trial of Jesus). Nothing in reality is instant, except the spoken Word of the Father, who speaks and it comes to pass – in an instant or as long as He deems necessary to fulfill HIs Will. We Americans are obsessed with doing things easier and quicker. We want what we want when we want it! We want a honko-second kind of delivery. 

Mark Batterson talks about in his book, Drawing the Circle says he went from praying the ASAP prayers to the ALAT prayers – translating meaning As Long As It Takes (ASAP) to As Long As It Takes (ALAT). Instead of wanting a honko-second answer to prayer, he saw the value in a constant, consistent prayer life which doesn’t stop because a prayer was answered. – for there are always more prayers that need to be prayed. 

Let us know that when we pray, no matter what the outcome, we are in good company with those many listed in the Hall of Faith (Hebrews 11), and even the millions who have come since  who aren’t:

^39-40 Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours. Hebrews 11:39-40 (MSG)

Waiting on God is in and of itself a spiritual discipline that we all have to learn how to graduate to!

Maria