Instant Gratification
Today I’ve been thinking a lot about patience… or maybe the lack of it.
We live in a generation of instant gratification. If we’re bored, we grab our phones. If we’re curious, we Google it. If we’re waiting, we fill the space with noise. And I see it in myself, but I especially see it in my kids. Sitting still, being bored, waiting without distraction… it almost feels foreign now.
Today I was talking with a friend who said that when she was pregnant, they didn’t have ultrasounds. They didn’t know the gender of their baby until the day their baby was born. And I caught myself thinking how hard that would have been. You couldn’t plan everything. You couldn’t know ahead of time. You just had to wait.
And that thought stuck with me.
What if the waiting was doing something in us?
Scripture talks about faith not as something loud or immediate, but as something living, something that lasts. Jesus compared faith to a mustard seed, not because of its size, but because of its nature. A mustard seed is tiny, almost insignificant, but once it’s planted, it grows steadily and persistently. It doesn’t rush, and it doesn’t stop halfway. In fact, once a mustard plant takes root, it’s hard to remove.
Mustard seed faith isn’t about how big or confident it feels, it’s about how long it lasts.
Hebrews 11 gives us many examples of people who had great, enduring faith, people who died trusting that God would fulfill the promises He made. Many of them never saw those promises fulfilled in their own lifetime, yet Scripture calls them righteous because they were willing to wait and trust God anyway. Their faith wasn’t proven by outcomes, but by endurance. They trusted God without proof, believing He would do what He said He would and He always did, even if the fulfillment came in ways they didn’t expect.
David was told as a young boy that he would be king. And then came years of waiting. Years of obscurity, betrayal, fear, and learning to trust God in caves before ever sitting on a throne. Scripture doesn’t hide the fact that he struggled, he questioned, he cried out, he wrestled, yet he always came back to God.
And it makes me think about how all of this shapes not just us but also our kids and future generations.
Kids today aren’t normally left to sit with discomfort, wrestle with longing, hold unanswered questions, or trust without feedback. So when faith asks them to pray without instant results, obey without explanation, or trust without visible evidence, it can feel unnatural, almost unfair. Not because faith is broken, but because that’s not how they’re being shaped in everyday life.
Waiting trains endurance. It teaches surrender. It forms trust without proof. And those are muscles that only grow when we allow space for them to develop.
And it makes me wonder how our need for immediate gratification affects our faith.
When God doesn’t answer right away, when prayers linger without resolution, what do we do? Do we keep praying? Do we keep trusting? Or do we quietly move on because it feels like nothing is happening?
I’m not saying this as someone who has this figured out, I’m saying it as someone who feels the tension daily.
In a world that rewards speed and certainty, waiting can feel like failure. Silence can feel like absence. But Scripture seems to suggest the opposite. That waiting is often where faith grows roots we don’t see yet.
Our doubt doesn’t cancel faith. Leaving does. Struggle is part of faith. Returning is what defines it.
I don’t have a tidy conclusion. Just a growing awareness that the waiting isn’t wasted, It’s doing something in us, even when we can’t see it yet. And that patience is something we may need to practice again, not just for ourselves, but for our kids.
I’m thinking maybe mustard seed faith isn’t about feeling strong or certain but more about learning to wait and to trust without proof. About staying planted long enough for God to do what He said He would do even when the waiting feels uncomfortable. 💜 Just a little food for thought.