In The Waiting
I hate waiting. We live in a culture that has done everything it could to remove any kind of waiting for anything. Instant gratification. We want results now. I want answers now.
If you haven’t read my last post you should check it out and then pick back up with this article. It’ll make this a different read. If you don’t want to spend that much time over here, that’s fine. This post will do okay by itself.
If there is one thing in the world my wife and I are terrible at, it’s waiting. It’s slowing down long enough to process decisions. We are both over zealous and like to make quick and fast decisions. For a lot of things this is actually necessary and has served us well. But for bigger things it has proved unhealthy. There have been times we have made a rushed or impulsive decision because of fear of not being in control of certain aspects of our lives (cough finances cough). Bethel Music put out a song last year called Take Courage. Check out the first few lines.
Slow down, take time
Breath in He said
He’d reveal what’s to come
The thoughts in His mind
Always higher than mine
He’ll reveal all to come
Take courage my heart
Stay steadfast my soul
He’s in the waiting
That last line. He’s in the waiting. Like a sucker punch to the gut. How many times have I made impulsive decisions, fully telling myself God was calling me to that, without actually taking the time to bring it to Him? How often do I neglect to slow down, and take in what He is saying? How often do REFUSE to allow myself to get to the waiting, where He is?
God promised that Abraham would be the father of many nations, but Abraham had to wait until he was 100 before he and Sarah had their first child. Joseph had to wait many years and many physical setbacks before becoming the leader God promised he would be. Job had to wait through many tragedies and physical ailments before God restored to him twice what he had. The bleeding woman had to endure 12 years of immense bleeding before touching Jesus would heal her. Interestingly when you search the Scriptures and you see God promising to do something in and through someone, there’s always a period of waiting before that promise is realized. There’s period of refinement, of shaping, of molding, building trust and coming to complete dependency on Him before the promise is realized.
It is in the waiting or the wilderness (which sounds way cooler) that God uses to shape His leaders. It is in the waiting that we can, as the words from the song above suggest, actually slow down, breath, and take the time to not only hear from Him, but to be prepared for what is to come.
These past five months, so far, has been just this. It has been the waiting. As much as we fought it, and knew that we would hate it, and as much as we don’t like waiting for anything, we believe that God called us to come to where we are (Canton, Ohio)…to wait. To wait on Him. To wait on him to restore us, to mold us, to prepare us for what He has next for us. So that’s what we do. We wait. In the wilderness so to speak.
David wrote in Psalm 37:7 “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.” We don’t know what could be next for us, maybe it’s here in Canton, maybe it’s not. But we are trusting in His goodness and His faithfulness. And hear this, we believe this journey is just as, if not more important as where He is leading. So for now we wait. We slow down. We rest. We breath. We look for Him in the waiting.
Have you allowed yourself to slow down and look for Him in the waiting?
