Living patiently, prepared for an Old Testament timescale

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I had an excellent meeting yesterday with a superb Christian blogger from Durham named Alastair J Roberts -

http://alastairadversaria.wordpress.com/

Among many wise things he said to me concerning the situation of the serious modern Christian, was his emphasis on the necessity for the kind of patience exhibited by Abraham and others in the Old Testament.

Christians are not in a situation when we can win in the short term, and if we are impatient it will lead to disaster.

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Alastair described many instances in the Old Testament in which the impatience of Israel - even impatience in getting what was destined to come in its due time - was punished by God.

God wanted His individual people and His nation to have certain things - such as to be ruled by a King - but only when they were mature, and if such things were demanded urgently, when the person or the people were not mature, then disaster would inevitably ensue.

This inspires me to study much more carefully the Old Testament, and learn from the faithful endurance of the great figures described therein; whose timescale was measured in generations, not years, nor weeks, nor the daily schedule of a blogger...

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