40 Years

Our God is not in a hurry.  He spent 40 years preparing the children of Israel to enter the Promised Land.

Our allotment is 70, or 80, if we are strong, according to the biblical span of years.

We grow impatient with ourselves and with one another.  St. Therese of Lisieux once remarked that the hardest thing for a child of God is to put up with our own failings. And yet, our patient God knew that it would take 40 years for the children of Israel to be ready to trust Him in an unknown land.

How long does it take for a fearful heart to grow calm and confident that God is with us?  I would say that it takes at least 40 years to begin to trust -- 40 years of seeing God work on our behalf, of knowing that time and time again, He has come to our rescue, that He has not left us alone in our sorrow and fears.

The purpose of our faith is not to make us "good people;" neither is it to earn us a place in heaven for all eternity.  The purpose of our faith journey is that we finally come to DEEPLY KNOW GOD!  This knowledge is personal, direct, and intimate -- far beyond the knowledge that comes from living a moral life.  When we have truly experienced that our God is "with us" for 40 years or more, we begin to praise and thank Him for His lovingkindness towards us.  At that point, we have become what Jesus called "True Worshippers in spirit and in truth" (John 4).

The advantage of "old age" is that we can finally look back over our lives and see for ourselves where God has helped us, where we have been led, though we could not see it at the time. And then we begin to praise Him, to thank Him from our hearts.  Now we know for ourselves Who Our God Is, and Who He has been for us all our lives.  And now for the first time, we begin to worship in spirit and in truth.