93 million miles.  That’s the average distance the earth is from the sun.  93,000,000 miles – that’s far.  Light travels at a rate of speed of 186,282 miles per second.  You heard that right - per second.  This translates to 670,616,629 mph.  That’s fast. 

This means, on average, given how fast light travels and how far we are from the sun, it takes the light of the sun roughly 499 seconds to reach the earth. 

Or to put this more manageably, it takes light just over 8 minutes to get from the sun to us here on earth.  That means when you step outside and feel the warm summer sun on your skin, that light has traveled about 93,000,000 miles in just about 8 minutes. 

Think about that for a moment. The light of the sun that we see and feel is technically 8 minutes old.

Before you ever see the light of the sun, it has crossed half a solar system. Before you ever feel it, that light has skipped past other planets. Before it ever touches your skin, it has already completed about 3,549,618 marathons. If the sun were to ever disappear during the day, it would take 8 minutes for us to even realize it as those last residual rays continued their journey to earth.

In other words, the light that we see and feel was on its way, long before we experienced it. 

If you’re like me, I struggle with impatience (the people who need to be reminded of this have probably already stopped reading this ha!).  I want the answer, I want the solution, I want the fix, I want the resource, and I want it now. 

King Saul experienced the pain of this sort of impatience in tragic fashion.  When the prophet-priest Samuel failed to arrive at the appointed time, King Saul impetuously took things into his own hands and offered the sacrifice which was the right and responsibility of Samuel alone, not Saul.

Here’s how the scriptures describe the scene (my paraphrase):

Tired of waiting and worried what his men might do if Samuel failed to show, Saul offered up the burnt offering himself.  Moments later, Samuel arrived.  Stunned by what he saw, Samuel questioned the king asking, “What have you done?” ~ 1 Samuel 13:8-10

Samuel was already on his way.  In fact, he was just moments away – maybe minutes away from arriving.  He had been dispatched to the King hours, days before Saul’s restlessness got the best of him.

Help was on the way long before Saul grew impatient. 

I think it’s good for us to remember that.

If God knows what we need before we even ask for it (Matthew 6:8), then God knows what we need before we even know we need it.  And if God knows what we need before we even know we need it, then we can trust that the help we need is already on the way.

The help, the resources, the people, the opportunities we need – because of who God is - are already on their way.

The good we need has already been sent, it’s already been prepared, they’ve already been released, but just like the light from the sun and Samuel, the good we need that God has already prepared takes time to arrive. 

We pray for a great number of reasons, but one of the reasons we pray is to align ourselves with the timing of God.  In prayer, we resist and refuse to rush the work and purposes of God.  In prayer, we bring our needs before God, not to inform God as if God was unaware, but to help our own hearts connect the dots of God’s faithfulness in our lives.  If the light of the sun is already on its way even before we experience it, if the light we experience now has already been on its way for 8 full minutes, then I have to believe we can trust that the light of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, is already on its way, even now, even before we need it. 

If you find yourself struggling with impatience, if you find yourself rushing God’s process and taking things into your hands, remember the light of the sun.  Millions of miles from where you are right now, light you have yet to see, yet to feel is already on its way. 

If God can cause the light of the sun to meet us here and now, I have no doubt that the light of His son Jesus Christ can do so even more. 

So, the next time you feel anxious, tempted to take matters into your own hands, take a deep breath, be patient, and trust God for good you just can't see yet.