“Early the following spring, during the twentieth year of King Artxerxes’ reign, I was serving the king his wine.”
  
These are heady days in the tech market.  IPOs, acquisitions, high valuations, tight talent market, etc. Companies are being founded left and right and finding the money to do so with a velocity we haven’t seen in 20 years (yes it has been that long since Netscape, AOL, Yahoo!, etc. hit the scene).  With this new generation and set of expectations comes the desire for speed and instant gratification, again. The recent purchase of Instagram and others who feel like overnight successes have us anxious to make things happen quickly and not miss the momentum that could come from being there first, or being in the right place at the right time. But, we aren’t all going to see instant success.  In fact, only a few will, the rest will take lots of time, with many never getting there at all.  But, something about us wants it all, right now.  We have to guard against that mentality as best we can.  I ran into a friend the other evening who said that he was looking forward to his company going public in July.  He should be as the company has been at it for a long time and it isn’t an overnight phenom by any measure. We are better off to sign our teams up for the long run and have them in shape to take on any distance, and if the finish line comes to us early, then feel fortunate.

Our God and our faith is not an “insta” kind of thing.  Even though we can accept Jesus and all He has to give us in an instant, the Christian life is one of continuance, endurance, commitment, and steadfastness. We learn this in many part of the Bible and the book of Nehemiah is a great example of being willing to wait and be ready for the moment when God allows us to act. Nehemiah knows what he must do but he waits a half a year until the moment is right and then he makes his request to the king.  We can take hear that not all is going to come to us instantly and that each and every day that we stay faithful, eyes fixed on Him, moving our lives and our examples towards the cross, that the rewards will be there in full abundance.  Do not give up hope.  Do not despair.  Stay strong and make today a step forward.

Reference: Nehemiah 2:1 (New Living Testament)