The God Whose Love Was Never in a Hurry

You’ve refreshed the same inbox four times in the last ten minutes, waiting on an answer that still hasn’t come. Somewhere underneath the waiting, a quieter question is running too: is God this slow with me as well? This Lord’s Day, set the inbox down and look at one truth about who He actually is.

C.H.E.W. with Me

New here? What is CHEW? — a 30-second practice that grows into a day woven with God’s love.

C – Clarity: The Reply You’re Still Waiting On

We measure love by speed. A fast reply feels like being valued; a slow one feels like being forgotten. Carry that same measuring stick into your relationship with God, and every unanswered prayer starts to look like proof He’s stopped paying attention — as if delay and neglect were the same thing. High performers are especially prone to this: you run a calendar where responsiveness is a virtue, so silence anywhere else in your life reads as a verdict. God’s silence isn’t a verdict. It’s worth looking at, this morning, before it gets measured by your inbox’s standards instead of His character.

H – Hear: Patience is Not the Same Word as Slow

“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.” (2 Peter 3:9)

Peter is writing to believers unsettled by scoffers who were pointing at the delay of Christ’s return as proof God had forgotten His promises. If the King hasn’t come back yet, the argument went, maybe He isn’t coming at all. Peter’s answer isn’t a defense of God’s timing — it’s a redefinition of it. The word behind “patient” is the Greek makrothymei, built from makros (“long”) and thymos (“temper” or “passion”). It literally means long-tempered — the opposite of a short fuse, someone who could act immediately but deliberately doesn’t. Peter isn’t excusing a slow God. He’s naming the wait itself as mercy in motion, holding space for more people to reach repentance. That is who you’re waiting on. God’s patience toward you was never Him forgetting you — it was Him holding a long fuse so you’d have room to come home.

E – Exchange: The Trade Between Slow and Late

What has to be exchanged is the assumption that a gap in time is a gap in love. You already know, intellectually, that God isn’t bound by your calendar. The harder work is believing it in the specific silence you’re actually sitting in right now — the door that hasn’t opened, the diagnosis that hasn’t changed, the relationship that hasn’t turned.

Because God’s love is patient — not weak, not distracted, but deliberately long-tempered toward you — how does that change what you do with the thing you’re still waiting on Him for?

W – Walk: Say This Out Loud Before You Check the Inbox Again

Say it out loud, even quietly, before you look at your phone again this morning: “Lord, You are patient toward me, and Your patience has never once meant You forgot me.” Let it be praise, not a request — a declaration about who He is before you ask Him for anything else today.

Closing Question: What have you been calling God’s delay that might actually be God’s patience?