We are microwave people who live in a microwave society. We are used to pushing a button and getting nearly instantaneous gratification.

There is nothing inherently wrong with having modern appliances and conveniences that heat our food water, and homes in just a few moments, but if we aren’t careful, we can let these things erroneously train us that the plan of God for our lives unfolds at the same instantaneous pace.

We live in a microwave society. But God is often cooking things up for us in a crockpot. Another name for a crockpot is a SLOW cooker. And the details of the plan for our lives are usually unfolding in a crockpot, not a microwave.

Now this is extremely important to understand because there are people who have come to doubt God’s faithfulness in their lives because they didn’t see microwave results.

Now I don’t know about you, but I firmly believe that food prepared in a crockpot tastes much better than food prepared in a microwave. But if I pull the food out of the crockpot too soon, it isn’t going to be ready to eat, and it is probably unpalatable.

God gave Paul an incredible promise right here in this passage. He had been arrested. There were people who wanted him dead. The situation seemed quite desperate. He could see the outward evidence that his trial wasn’t going well and that his goose was probably cooked.

But God was promising him that not only was he NOT going to die there in Jerusalem, he was going to be traveling all the way across the world to Rome, where he would get to tell people about Jesus there too!

Wow! What a promise!!

But do you know how long it took for this promise to be fulfilled? YEARS! There wasn’t going to be a microwave oven involved in this process.

Now during the long process of Paul traveling to Rome, much of it stuck behind prison bars, I am sure that Paul would have had ample opportunity to have given up on God’s promise. BUT HE NEVER DID!

Why? Because God NEVER goes back on His promises!

And the promise was that he was going to Rome. But the promise was NOT that he was going to Rome TOMORROW.

I have some Good News for those who are reading this and have seemingly screwed up God’s plan for their lives. They thought they knew what the plan was, but somehow they have missed it and tried to take something out of the crockpot too soon.

Paul had screwed up and missed God’s plan A. He wasn’t supposed to be in Jerusalem at all, but here he was in a Jerusalem jail.

This promise is the beginning of the unfolding of God’s plan B for Paul. And plan B turned out to be so awesome that we can barely imagine how plan A could have been better.

Plan B produced a big chunk of the New Testament. We might not have had Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, or Philemon if Paul had stayed on plan A.

God can take YOUR plan B, birthed from the remnants of your screw up, and turn it into something AWESOME! And that’s a fact!

But He’ll likely be using a crockpot to prepare the feast. And THAT’S why you need patience to understand God’s timing.

P.S. If you’re a born-again Christian, you already have all the patience you need. You just need to learn how to use it.