At some point in life, most of us have had an internalized timeline determining when things should happen if not how they should happen. Our present day demands instant gratification, faster internet speeds, immediate downloads. To quote from an old movie, it's becoming ever-increasing that “Instant gratification takes too long.”

The people of God had heard God speak. They understood what He said because He used their language. When God speaks, He always speaks in a way that we can understand. That is why Eternal God, the Son, became incarnate; to show us Who God is in a way that we could comprehend.

So…after God speaks and they realize that had already been living contrary to what God made clear was the way they were to live in covenant with Him. The thing that is hard for us is that we think when God gives a command that He expects us to bare down and, by applied “white-knuckling it”, DO that He has commanded. But, inherent in every command of God is a promise. When God says, “You shall be holy as I am holy.” I have to humbly accept that if God doesn’t make that happen, it won’t happen. No one can redeem their own life. What is broken cannot fix itself. What is dead in incapable of changing its circumstance to any degree.

The 10 Commandments were given to describe prefect relational living with God and one another. What the people of Israel failed to see, as we often do, was that the God who rescued them knew and understood them and would provide the grace they needed to follow Him into life as it was meant to be known.

However, Moses was 40 days on the mountain getting God’s instructions for worship, living in community, how to build a structure where they would come to grow through worship in their relationship with God. When God introduced Himself, they saw no image. They saw power, but no discernable shape or form. They were accustomed to seeing images of the gods of Egypt: idols.

Still living with a slave mentality and the moral rectitude of feral rabbits, waiting for Moses became tiresome. We need to take a lesson here. When God’s timing is not the same as ours, we need to take care that, in our impatience, we try to make things work the way we always have tried to “make things work”. If we stopped and thought clearly for a minute, we’d stop, because trying on our own to make life work has never really worked.

It didn’t for Israel either. They demanded that Aaron make an image they could see, and thus have leverage with, to “represent” God. Aaron takes their gold, puts it in the fire and, as he told Moses later when confronted with his folly, “I put the gold in and out popped this bull!” Opis was the bull god of Egypt, a recognizable figure to the ex-slaves. God, however had told them not to make any graven image, any supposed representation of God, and certainly NOT to worship the work of their hands. They fell into demonic revelry and debauchery immediately. 3,000 died because of it. The wage that sin pays IS death.

When we look to anything or anyone else other that God to define our lives, worth, purpose or to be the source of satisfying human need, we have made an idol. It doesn’t even end well when we worship the work of our own finite, fallible and feeble hands.

Wait for God. Refuse to let impatience be the driving force in any life-decisions. Focus on seeking Him, not merely the answer you want from Him. Don’t be deceived. There is no other God, but Him. He’s never late. He just doesn’t derive His timetable from us.