Be Patient With Yourself: God Is—and He Never Rushes What He’s Refining

We are often far harder on ourselves than God ever is.

We measure progress by speed, we judge growth by outcomes, we label seasons as “failures” when they don’t move fast enough.

But God does not rush what He is refining.

If He is patient with the work He is doing in you, why do you demand instant results from yourself?

One thing I have learnt is that God is very intentional, He is not in a hurry, He’s certainly not on our timeline .Scripture consistently shows us that God values process as much as promise. Refinement takes time because depth takes time. Strength takes time. Wisdom takes time.

Gold is not refined in a moment, character is not formed in a weekend, calling is not rushed without consequence.

They say hindsight is 20/20…. Every time I look back on my life, I see God’s hand in it every step of the way. Many days when I was in it, I didn’t feel His presence, but I accept that His plans are always greater than ours. Too often I made poor choices, and I had to live through the consequences but God lead me to a better path. The consequences were Him refining me, the faster I got the lesson, the faster the recovery…. Took me a while to get it!

When God allows a season to linger, it is not punishment—it is preparation. What feels slow to you may be strategic to Him.

So many of us quietly carry shame because we believe we should be “further by now.” In my case, I was thriving in corporate and then COVID happened, I moved back to the US and I felt like I was starting over, I started to feel like a failure, like I wasn’t good enough, like I had no sense of direction, like I wasn’t living in purpose. I realize now that my life and my identity was centered around my career for so long, God had to strip me of it to help me to focus on other things.

I had to remind myself of who I am in Him, I am not my job. I had to learn to become a wife, after being single for 40 years and having never lived with a man before, being in another country and state, away from everything I knew was God’s way of molding me into becoming a good wife and helping me to be reminded of who I am in Him.

Growth is not linear, and God is not comparing your timeline to anyone else’s. Most of my childhood friends have been married over 10 years and have multiple children and my husband didn’t find me until I was 40. The truth is that if I met my husband 10 years earlier, 5 years or even two years earlier… I was not ready to be anyone’s wife.

Just remember that some seasons are for planting, some are for pruning and some are for rest.

I never knew how to rest. I had to learn that rest is not regression. I needed the time to rest, reflect and get clarity. God bless my husband, he helped to teach me balance and boundaries.

If God has you in a refining season, it’s because He values who you are becoming more than how quickly you arrive.