I very rarely journal, but I found myself typing out some thoughts tonight. Perhaps I will 'journal' a bit throughout my series (or maybe this will be the only occurrence?). But I'm posting my thoughts below:
As I asked myself the question “what do my current weaknesses say about my true beliefs about God’s character?”… I realized that I might, deep down, believe that God is too inactive. If I feel I struggle with indifference, does that mean I might think God struggles with that too? If I feel like I’m somewhat lazy, does that mean that in my heart of hearts I feel God isn’t working as hard as He should?
If so… if to any degree this is true… could it be that I have too quickly interpreted as inactivity, indifference, and laziness what is actually an astounding level of patience? Could it be that divine patience is so immense that it is easily misunderstood?
That seems to be what 2 Peter 3 is getting at. Scoffers were rejecting God because time seemed to be continuing on ad-nauseam. But the passage alerts us to the fact that God’s seeming inactivity was not motivated by indifference and/or laziness, but by patience. God was patiently waiting for more and more people (even scoffers) to come into the fold.
But is this level of patience a good strategy? It doesn’t seem that it was working in 2 Peter 3. While he’s waiting them out, they’re growing harder and harder. Am I now questioning God’s wisdom instead of His effort-level?