The Microwave Door I Opened With Four Seconds Still on the Clock
The Microwave Door I Opened With Four Seconds Still on the Clock
RedeemedExistence daily devotional — October 3, 2026
I did it again last night, reheating coffee of all things, standing in the kitchen watching the numbers count down and pulling the door open at four seconds because I could not stand to watch the thing finish on its own schedule instead of mine. My wife laughed at me from the table, because she has watched me do this for years, with the microwave, with the dryer buzzer, with the browser tab loading a page I have already refreshed twice. It is such a small thing that I used to think it meant nothing about me at all. Standing there last night with a mug of coffee four seconds under warm, I finally admitted it means something.
I have been sober twelve years, and I used to assume my impatience disappeared along with the drinking, since so much of that old life really was about not wanting to feel anything a minute longer than I had to. What I have learned instead is that the craving just changed its clothes. I do not want a drink anymore. I still want the diagnosis now, the apology now, the answer to the prayer now, and I still treat any gap between asking and receiving like a personal insult rather than the normal shape of waiting on anyone, including God.
Scripture does not flatter that impatience the way I used to flatter it in myself. James points to a farmer, someone who cannot rush a harvest no matter how badly he needs the money that season. "Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain" (James 5:7, NKJV). He does not say the waiting is easy or short. He says it has rain built into it, both kinds, early and late, and neither one arrives because the farmer finally got anxious enough to deserve it. Then he says the same thing to me directly, without apology. "You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand" (James 5:8, NKJV).
I have spent years treating patience like a mood I either have or do not have on a given day, as if some people were simply born more capable of waiting well. Lamentations says something closer to the truth, that patience is less a personality trait than a posture toward a particular Person. "The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD" (Lamentations 3:25-26, NKJV). Quietly is the word that convicts me every time, because quiet has never once been my approach to a closed microwave door or an unanswered text. David gives the same instruction twice in one verse, like he knew once would not land. "Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!" (Psalm 27:14, NKJV).
Here is where my own reasoning has never once gotten me free of it. I can tell myself that four seconds on a microwave clock means nothing, that worse things have tested better men than me, and every word of that lecture can be true and still leave me exactly as twitchy as I was before I started reasoning with myself. My mind measures time the only way it knows how, against my own schedule, and against that measurement, waiting will always look like loss. Peter gives the only perspective wide enough to actually hold it. "But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:8-9, NKJV). What I have been calling delay, God has been calling mercy the whole time, patience stretched out over people, including me, who were not ready yet for what was coming.
This is what abiding in the Spirit gives that my own counting down could never give me, not a faster clock but a different relationship to the waiting itself. Micah names it as simply as I have ever heard it named. "Therefore I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; My God will hear me" (Micah 7:7, NKJV). Looking replaces counting. Jesus tells His disciples where that kind of waiting actually comes from, and it is not willpower. "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:4-5, NKJV). A branch does not grit its teeth and manufacture patience. It stays attached, and patience shows up as fruit growing out of that attachment rather than a virtue I white-knuckle into existence on my own. Paul lists it that way on purpose. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law" (Galatians 5:22-23, NKJV). Longsuffering, right there next to peace, grown rather than gritted.
I reheated that coffee again this morning, and I let it run the full ninety seconds without touching the door, which for me is practically a testimony. It is such a small thing to offer God, standing still in a kitchen for a minute and a half. But I am starting to believe He meets me in the small surrenders as readily as the large ones. God is alive this morning, and He already knows exactly which four seconds you cannot stand to wait out today. He has a plan for you that was never running behind schedule, and He will never leave you standing there alone, watching the clock count down by yourself.
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Scriptures used (NKJV): James 5:7-8; Lamentations 3:25-26; Psalm 27:14; 2 Peter 3:8-9; Micah 7:7; John 15:4-5; Galatians 5:22-23.
RedeemedExistence daily devotional — October 3, 2026
I did it again last night, reheating coffee of all things, standing in the kitchen watching the numbers count down and pulling the door open at four seconds because I could not stand to watch the thing finish on its own schedule instead of mine. My wife laughed at me from the table, because she has watched me do this for years, with the microwave, with the dryer buzzer, with the browser tab loading a page I have already refreshed twice. It is such a small thing that I used to think it meant nothing about me at all. Standing there last night with a mug of coffee four seconds under warm, I finally admitted it means something.
I have been sober twelve years, and I used to assume my impatience disappeared along with the drinking, since so much of that old life really was about not wanting to feel anything a minute longer than I had to. What I have learned instead is that the craving just changed its clothes. I do not want a drink anymore. I still want the diagnosis now, the apology now, the answer to the prayer now, and I still treat any gap between asking and receiving like a personal insult rather than the normal shape of waiting on anyone, including God.
Scripture does not flatter that impatience the way I used to flatter it in myself. James points to a farmer, someone who cannot rush a harvest no matter how badly he needs the money that season. "Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain" (James 5:7, NKJV). He does not say the waiting is easy or short. He says it has rain built into it, both kinds, early and late, and neither one arrives because the farmer finally got anxious enough to deserve it. Then he says the same thing to me directly, without apology. "You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand" (James 5:8, NKJV).
I have spent years treating patience like a mood I either have or do not have on a given day, as if some people were simply born more capable of waiting well. Lamentations says something closer to the truth, that patience is less a personality trait than a posture toward a particular Person. "The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the soul who seeks Him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD" (Lamentations 3:25-26, NKJV). Quietly is the word that convicts me every time, because quiet has never once been my approach to a closed microwave door or an unanswered text. David gives the same instruction twice in one verse, like he knew once would not land. "Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!" (Psalm 27:14, NKJV).
Here is where my own reasoning has never once gotten me free of it. I can tell myself that four seconds on a microwave clock means nothing, that worse things have tested better men than me, and every word of that lecture can be true and still leave me exactly as twitchy as I was before I started reasoning with myself. My mind measures time the only way it knows how, against my own schedule, and against that measurement, waiting will always look like loss. Peter gives the only perspective wide enough to actually hold it. "But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:8-9, NKJV). What I have been calling delay, God has been calling mercy the whole time, patience stretched out over people, including me, who were not ready yet for what was coming.
This is what abiding in the Spirit gives that my own counting down could never give me, not a faster clock but a different relationship to the waiting itself. Micah names it as simply as I have ever heard it named. "Therefore I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; My God will hear me" (Micah 7:7, NKJV). Looking replaces counting. Jesus tells His disciples where that kind of waiting actually comes from, and it is not willpower. "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:4-5, NKJV). A branch does not grit its teeth and manufacture patience. It stays attached, and patience shows up as fruit growing out of that attachment rather than a virtue I white-knuckle into existence on my own. Paul lists it that way on purpose. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law" (Galatians 5:22-23, NKJV). Longsuffering, right there next to peace, grown rather than gritted.
I reheated that coffee again this morning, and I let it run the full ninety seconds without touching the door, which for me is practically a testimony. It is such a small thing to offer God, standing still in a kitchen for a minute and a half. But I am starting to believe He meets me in the small surrenders as readily as the large ones. God is alive this morning, and He already knows exactly which four seconds you cannot stand to wait out today. He has a plan for you that was never running behind schedule, and He will never leave you standing there alone, watching the clock count down by yourself.
---
Scriptures used (NKJV): James 5:7-8; Lamentations 3:25-26; Psalm 27:14; 2 Peter 3:8-9; Micah 7:7; John 15:4-5; Galatians 5:22-23.
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