Jehovah is not slow respecting his promise, as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with you because he does not desire any to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance.

43. Instead of being impatient about God’s way of handling matters, to what questions ought humans to give serious consideration?

⁴³ It betrays a lack of understanding of God’s way of handling matters, when a person says, impatiently: ‘Why has not God done something about the bad world situation before now? He ought to hurry up and do something for human relief, so that I can get the benefit of it​—quick!’ The main question that such an impatient person should ask himself is: ‘Have I as yet attained to repentance toward God?’ Or: ‘Am I taking advantage of the time to help as many others as possible to attain to repentance?’

44. (a) How have God’s dealings with mankind really displayed incomparable “patience” on his part, and with what objective in view? (b) During this period of time, what has God done with a view to the salvation of as many as possible?

⁴⁴ Who can rightly accuse God of being slow about his promise to cleanse this earth of wickedness and establish a lasting righteous government, when a thousand years of man’s time are as but one twenty-four-hour day to the Eternal God? He has his set day for taking action, and the day set has allowed ample time for countless numbers of men to attain to repentance. Instead of their viewing it as ‘slowness’ on God’s part, they should recognize his having set his “day” for action so far in the future from the beginning of the “heavens and the earth that are now” as incomparable “patience” on his part. This divine patience has been because He does not desire any to perish, be destroyed. So, during the thousands of years that he has allowed till his unchangeably fixed “day,” he sent his beloved Son from heaven to act as a Great Teacher on earth and to die as a ransom sacrifice for all mankind, that there might be salvation of as many as possible. (Galatians 4:4) Since that first coming of his faithful beloved Son to earth, repentance for forgiveness of sins has been preached in all the inhabited earth. For over nineteen centuries such repentance has been preached.

45. Although ridiculers do not appreciate it, how has God dealt even with them?

⁴⁵ The ridiculers of today do not take advantage of the time of God’s patience in order to attain to repentance that they might not be destroyed. Although they do not appreciate it, God has acted very kindly toward them with a view to their repenting. As the apostle Paul wrote, in his inspired letter to the Roman congregation that was made up of Christianized Jews and Gentiles: “Do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and long-suffering, because you do not know that the kindly quality of God is trying to lead you to repentance?”​—Romans 2:4.