Amazon Moves Faster than the Kingdom of God

Learning the pace of God

I recently read a mind-blowing statistic.

If Amazon’s homepage was a single second slower at loading the company would lose $1.6 billion in sales every year.

Think about that….

1 second = $1.6 billion

GONE.

Time is money

This takes the age old adage “time is money” to a whole new level.

One second of slow costs the company an astronomical amount.

Why? Because people won’t wait a single second longer to go shopping. If Amazon’s page doesn’t load right away, customers won’t wait around.

Speed isn’t just driving Amazon’s business.

It’s driving us too.

The kingdom’s clock

I’m not here to speak out against speed.

I don’t like to wait around for Amazon to load either. But we can’t let our quick expectations misshape our expectations of God. The kingdom of God doesn’t work like Amazon’s homepage.

Jesus doesn’t do his saving work rapidly. And the Holy Spirit doesn’t grow us into mature believers in an instant.

God’s economy is less like Amazon’s homepage and more like the tree outside my window. More often than not, the work of the kingdom is slow and barely noticeable.

Whether we like it or not, slow growth is the way of the kingdom.

Living our new timeline

So the question to ask ourselves is not whether we are realizing the kingdom in our lives and our community quickly enough.

It’s more of how are we, like a wise gardeners, patiently and lovingly creating an environment for the Holy Spirit to bear fruit and usher in eternal change?

What are we doing today to bear fruit years from now?

How are we working to make things on earth as they are in heaven not just in our own generation but in the generations to come?

How are we living at the pace of God?