This morning in Costa Rica, I stood on a mountainside with red coffee cherries staining my fingers and the scent of roasting beans drifting through cool air. The rows ran along a sharp incline. You do not stroll through fields like that. You lean into them. You steady your footing. You work.

Our guide shared something I will not forget. Coffee grown at lower elevations ripens quickly. The harvest comes sooner. But the flavor is light.

Higher up the mountain, everything changes. The air is cooler. The beans mature slowly. And harvesting them requires harder labor because of the angle of the ground. Every step demands attention. But when those beans are roasted, the taste is deep. Rich. Strong.

I prefer low elevations.

Quick answers. Immediate results. Visible progress. But Scripture tells a different story about depth.

“Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (James 1:3–4).

Patience is not divine postponement. It is formation.

Paul writes, “Tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope” (Romans 5:3–4). Tribulation is high ground. The climb is steeper. The work is harder. The results are slower. But something weightier is forming.

High places expose what low places hide. The air is thinner up there, and so is applause.

Isaiah reminds us, “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles” (Isaiah 40:31). Waiting and mounting up belong together. Elevation and endurance are companions.

Even our Lord followed this pattern. The Son of God was content to grow in obscurity before He spoke in authority. Thirty quiet years before three public ones. The richest life ever lived was not hurried.

Perhaps your season feels steep. You are praying, but not yet seeing. Serving, but not yet harvesting. Climbing, but not yet resting.

Do not confuse delay with decay.

Where in your life are you asking for speed when God is asking for depth?

If He has taken you higher, He is growing you deeper. Let it ripen.