Three Mile An Hour God
Kosuke Koyama, a Japanese theologian, wrote a very fascinating book called Three Mile An Hour God. Koyama points out that the average person walks at a pace of about 3 miles per hour, which for a kid who grew up in the hustle and bustle of a big city feels like snail's pace. Using this analogy, Koyama argued that often this is the pace at which God works: slow, slower, slowest.
Koyama wrote, “Love has its speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed. It goes on in the depth of our life, whether we notice or not, at three miles an hour. It is the speed we walk and therefore the speed the love of God walks.”
God’s not in a hurry. His plan will be fulfilled but it will be in his timing. This past weekend we began our series in the book of Acts and started to unpack the nature of the greatest movement in the history of humanity. God’s movement. But in looking at the first few verses of Acts - there’s a curious (and often overlooked) instruction that Jesus gives.
Acts 1:4 states…“And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father.”
Did you catch it? Wait. The first thing that Jesus tells his disciples to do is to hurry up and to…wait. Put yourself in the shoes of the disciples for a second. Jesus just rose from the dead. All the things you thought were a lie are now solidly true in your mind and heart. All the healings, the teachings, the spiritual restoration. You have to imagine his disciples are all kinds of fired up. They think we have more sick people to heal, sin to forgive, brokenness to restore, teaching to lay out…heck we have a government to overthrow!
You catch the impatience of the disciples in their question back to Jesus. Acts 1:6 says, “So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” This is the proverbial child in the toy store saying ME…WANT…NOW!
But Jesus in his gentle yet firm Jesus way (probably with a smirk and a pat on the head) responds: “He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.’” (v.7).
Notice what Jesus’ focuses on in his correction. He corrects the timetable. The disciples say…now. Jesus says, “in time…in my Father’s time.” At Port City Church, we most certainly want to move with God but it will take surrender on our parts to move in God’s time. Take for instance the Psalms, which are replete with the phrase…”wait on the Lord”.
“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 27:14).
Waiting on the Lord is an acknowledgement of full surrender. It is a statement of surrender. So…we want to be a part of the movement of God. We want to pray boldly and act courageously towards investing our life in this movement. But, as followers of Jesus we must acknowledge that a part of that journey (I would argue the Bible says a big part) is waiting.
Are there areas in your life that you need to “wait” on God - areas where you’re trying to run ahead of God? Are there areas where God wants to move but he’s going to do it in His time?
As a church are we surrendered not just to the mission of God but the mission of God in the timing of God? Jesus reminds us here…right at the start of this incredible movement that the work of God (in your life in the life of Port City) is not a microwave meal. We want the hot pocket…God wants to give us something so much better.
Pastor Jeremy
For more reading and a practical discipleship tool around this biblical topic of waiting see check out Mark Vroegop’s book “Waiting Isn’t a Waste”.
