When God Delays:
What I Have Learned While Waiting with God

Rosaly Guzman
La Romana, Dominican Republic

My beloved sisters, what a great joy to be able to address you through these means. It is an honor and an undeserved privilege to share the word of God with you. Friends, if you are reading this devotional, it is because there is a special purpose that God wishes to share with you through His sacred writings.

The topic I want to share with you is “When God Delays.” In thinking of what to share with you, this title stuck in my heart because I thought of so many occasions and stages of my life when—according to me—God was late. I say, “according to me,” because the Bible speaks very clearly about God’s will in
reference to those things that I hadn’t yet received and even those that I still haven’t received.

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.   The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
2 Peter 3:8-9 (NIV)

Sisters and friends, at different stages of my life I have felt that God has been late in doing this or that thing for me. Some of you may have gone through similar feelings or are presently housing them in your heart. It might be possible that, just like me, you have doubted the promises of God. Maybe you believe
that His promises only apply to specific women with specific qualities.

You may think the promise of finding that “prince charming” is only for girls of a certain height, skin color and physical appearance. Sisters, I have lived it, thought it, and suffered it! I thought I had not gotten married because I was not a beautiful woman.

When I was ten years old in the faith, I embarked on a mission to La Romana, a beautiful city in my country. After my conversion in 1998, coming on this mission team has been the most extraordinary and special thing that has happened to me. However, with the passing of time, I saw most of my mission team friends get married and I ended up as the only single adult in a church with a membership so young that each brother literally saw me as his mother or older sister. When these young brothers were in love, they would even come to me to ask for advice. I was happy with that, but I also was overcome by feelings of doubt, fear, pain, discouragement, and disappointment.

I thought that my God was too late in this area of my life. I would go from begging with tears for a husband to also trying to accept that God’s tardiness meant a NO for me. I would pray that He would help me not to become a bitter single woman who doubts Him and walks away from her faith for this one thing that He did not give me, because He already had given me much more than I deserved and expected in my life.

I also felt I was experiencing God’s delays in my professional and work life. When I left to help plant the church in La Romana, I was faced with the fact that I had invested almost nine years in a career that I never finished because of my lack of wisdom and discipline. I saw the university as a distraction from my purpose and not as a field of work for that purpose. This attitude had a negative effect in my life and on those who surrounded me. I wanted to move forward in life. I wanted to have better financial resources to travel, to give and meet the need of others, to serve God, and to reach many with the gospel. But this was very difficult because of my lack of resources. I was stagnant professionally and intellectually until a great woman asked me questions that made me reflect and think, “Am I being like Christ in this area? Can people see an example in me in relation to my career or am I using what I thought to be ‘Gods delay’ to accommodate myself?”

In 2006, thinking that God was working too late in my life, I entered into a relationship with a man who was not the one God had for me. Even though he was a Christian, ours was not a pure relationship in the eyes of God. It was a toxic relationship where he was jealous of me, there was rivalry between the two
of us, and there was even verbal abuse. Sadly, all this I accepted as normal.

It was hard for me to decide to leave that relationship. I didn’t want to end it for fear that God would no longer have another man for me. During the two years that the relationship lasted, my inward fears grew greater than my trust in my Lord. Perhaps this has happened to you. Can you relate to me?

Sisters, do not choose any man—even in the church—for fear of being alone. Your Lord has been the best example of sacrificial dedication, love, and tenderness. What you need will be fulfilled at the proper time and when He confirms it for you.

The first verse of Psalms 23, one of the most read psalms in the Bible, says; “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.” In the Contemporary English Version it says, “I will never be in need.”

It is possible that you may feel like you need something. You may even long for it. You may be convinced that you need a man in your life to make you feel loved, or children to make you feel like a mother, or a husband so that someone can take care of you, or a better position in your work to make you feel fulfilled or to you confirm that you have God’s favor. But in reality, sisters, you don’t need what you
don’t have now. Devote yourself to enjoying and being happy with what you do have.

So, what am I telling you with this? Don’t dream? Stop waiting for the promises of your God and trusting that they will come true? NOT AT ALL!

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NLT)

God will give you, at the right time, that wonderful man who is worth 100 times more than what you left behind when you became a disciple. That brother will do anything for you when he arrives. He will be so special that you will know that it could not have been at a better time; that it was a gift from God and that it was not late.

Meanwhile, live, serve, walk, grow in friendships, and enjoy life in the abundance that God has given to you as He describes in John 10:10 (ESV): “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Sisters, I share these things with you from my heart for I have felt as though God has delayed in so many areas of my life. I can also relate in the area of ​​motherhood, for I must confess that the main reason I wanted to get married was to be able to have a daughter. I already had a name for the daughter not yet
born. For years I had wanted my daughter’s name to be Clara Elena. I even reached the point where I surrendered to what I thought was God’s will in this area of my life by designing the “perfect” plan to work with an adoption agency that would allow me to adopt a girl.

I wanted and still want to be a mother. So, I speak to you sisters and friends who long to be mothers. Whether you are single or married, but you have this deep longing to have children, GOD IS NOT LATE! God has chosen that baby that you yearn for so much. If you cannot have him or her from your own womb, it does not mean that you will not be able to be a mother. The motherly love you lavish on any child that comes into your home will give you the honor of experiencing motherhood.

Sisters, continue enjoying your life as single women or as married women. Continue serving others to the extent that as you take care of the things of God, He will take care of you. As His word tells us in Matthew 6:33 (NLT): “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”

Our Savior is always faithful. His purpose for our lives is not unfulfilled.

It is not yet time for the message to come true.
    But that time is coming soon.
    The message will come true.
It may seem like a long time before it happens.
    But be patient and wait for it.
These things will happen.
    They will not be delayed.
Habakkuk 2:3 (ICB)

So, sisters, because of God’s faithfulness and timing, I am getting married in October to a wonderful Colombian man who loves me with all his heart, who puts God first and shows me every day. He is so amazing that even before being engaged to me he was already studying God’s design for how a husband
should love his wife.

In 2016 I graduated as an educational psychologist with the highest honor from college. In 2019 I was hired by the state to work in my field by being among the few applicants that passed. Because of God’s infinite goodness, last month I was selected to present a nationwide project used for training guidance counselors all over the country.

Sisters, I have described some of my battles during these past 23 years in Christ. I have doubted. I have prayed. I have complained to God. And I have even demanded Him to change my heart. Through His mercy I have learned that only He is in control and I’m extremely grateful for His patience. For my God
knew that when the moment came, I would understand His why’s and His timing.

This reminds me of Joseph in the Bible. He was 17 years old when his brothers sold him as a slave and he was 30 years old when he became the governor of Egypt. God showed him His plans in dreams, but only at the proper time would Joseph experience them. Joseph cried, suffered, and went through difficulties,
but God was faithfully by his side. Joseph never mistrusted or turned away from his God. Joseph’s life was such an example that even Potiphar realized that God was with Joseph:

“Potiphar noticed this and realized that the Lord was with Joseph, giving him success in everything he did.” Genesis 39:3 (NLT)

Even when Joseph was in prison, the officials there realized that God was with him: “The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.” Genesis 39:23 (NIV)

The Bible does not describe the feelings that Joseph experienced during those hard years. But in Genesis 41:52 (NIV), when giving the names of his children, Joseph said, “God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.”

Sisters and friends, God is not late in your life. Do not despair. He lives every day. Believe in your Lord. Calmly wait for His promises. He is not delayed.

There is still much I expect from my Lord. I still don’t know if I will be able to have children because of my age, but I do know that everything I have received from God has come just in time. So, I will continue waiting calmly. As the scripture says:

This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:
“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength…”
Isaiah 30:15

Dear sisters, I pray that all that I have shared will be of great help to you.

Love from your sister in Christ,
Rosaly Guzman
Santo Domingo Church of Christ in La Romana