Just Wait...



I've said this a time or two to my kiddos, "Ethan please wait."  "Eva, please wait patiently."  I am usually met with frustration at the request to wait.  To them it seems an eternity stands between them and their desires.  To them, I am the obstacle standing in their path.

Oh, how I understand their growing restlessness, and yet, the Lord still makes his firm request plain to me, "wait."  No explanation.  No reasoning.  Just, wait.

If patience is a virtue, then I am sorely lacking.  A short time after we were married, B said that the Lord never requested him to wait patiently until he married me.  He made it clear that I should stop wrestling with the Lord over patience so he would no longer be the casualty of our struggle.  Fair enough.  Unfortunately for him...he's along for the ride.

Last night, I wrestled through prayer, "Lord, I know I am learning during this season...so is it time?  Have I fulfilled what you've asked of me?  Is it finished?"  And like a child I whined, "Are we there yet?"  And while it may not have been audible, the words, "not yet" settled over me...and then this:  "Make My ways your ways.  Make My thoughts yours.  Desire Me above all else.  I will direct your path."

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own

understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him,

and He shall direct your paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Tears flowed in the darkness, and I quietly whispered, "Okay."  He knows how hard this is for me.  He knows He is asking something of me that is painful.  Did  He reveal the outcome?  No.  It was still, just wait.  But, it was also much more...He desires to direct my path.  

As doors have opened and closed the last few months, I have put my hope in their possibilities.  I turned my eyes from the Lord to put my faith in searching for answers.  My whole life, I've surged forward to find answers, thus closing the box, tying a neat bow around it and placing my packaged circumstance on a shelf.

When I'm met with the obstacle of waiting, I soon realize I cannot wrap a neat little bow around my circumstance and shelve it.  I'm forced to turn to God and lean on Him for understanding until His time and purpose is fulfilled.

Delight yourself also in the Lord and He shall give you

the desires of your heart.  commit your way to the Lord, trust

also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.  Rest in the Lord

and wait patiently for Him...

Psalm 37: 4-5, 7

Herein lies the difficult part of walking out my faith in Him.  He doesn't force or make demands.  But, He requests I hand over my boxed up circumstances, and then wait on Him.  No doing it myself.  No putting it neatly on the shelf my way.  It now becomes His.  He takes it and promises to give it back when the time is right.  He reveals that the gift of waiting is allowing Him to fulfill His perfect will...in His perfect timing...to perfect completion.

It's hard to wait.  And I don't do it gracefully.  I stumble.  I complain.  But, it's what He continues to ask of me.  My resolve, my strength, crumbles in His able hands...and He quietly asks me to keep waiting and draw my strength from Him.

But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall

mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary,

they shall walk and not grow faint.

Isaiah 40:31

What is the Lord asking of you?  Wait?  Obey?  Give something to Him?