The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some consider slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.     2 Peter 3:9 LSB

We serve a loving God. Some mistakenly think this means God does not get angry and will not punish us for our sins. But my friend, don’t get it twisted.

We are told in Romans 12:19 that we are to leave vengeance to God. We are to save room for His wrath. In all honesty, there was a time when I would wonder if and when God would ever punish some of these people. I would see evil people just seem to get away with it.

If I’m honest, however, God let me just get away with my sinful behavior for quite some time as well. He allowed me to keep on sinning and believing the devil’s lies. Now if you take today’s Scripture passage in context, Peter said in verse 8, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like one day. So, first of all, we can’t fully comprehend God’s timing. Let’s get that straight before we go any further. What we consider a really long time, may just be a mere moment in time for God.

Then our Scripture passage for today says God is not slow, but He is patient. I don’t know about you, but I thank God He is. If He weren’t patient, I would have been in big trouble. He patiently waited for me to come to Him and finally realize that I could not save myself. I needed Him for that.

Now in keeping with the context of our Scripture passage, let’s look at the next verse, verse 10 which says, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be found out.”

There will come a day when those who have not surrendered to Him will feel the fury of His wrath. He loves us and doesn’t want us to go to hell, so He is patient and hopes we will repent and turn to Him.

Maybe instead of being impatient about when someone is going to get what is due to them, perhaps we should focus on what we need to be doing. We need to be focusing on the Lord (Matthew 6:33) and be grateful for the fact that He takes care of all we need. We need to be concentrating on what is above and our heavenly home, not all the drama going on down here (Colossians 3:1-17).

As sinners, we are due to go to hell. Maybe we should spend more time thanking God for His Son who died to save us from our sins and sin and death.

When you find yourself wondering why bad people get away with doing bad things, remember that you too were once a sinner and God saved you. Remember the patience He had with you and still does. We are all works in progress. We will not see perfection until we get to heaven. But we should be striving for righteousness. We should be doing the best we can do and trusting God to do His work in His timing.

If you find yourself getting impatient, get to work. Focus on doing what He has called you to do. And above all remember that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Practice these things. Pray for those who are lost in sin, and you will see your impatience turn to compassion.

Have a great day!