While I’m Waiting
Throughout our everyday lives we experience a wide range of seasons, with some being more life changing than others. We also experience different seasons through our walk with Christ and speaking from my experience these seasons can be very challenging. Specifically, we’ll be talking about the “waiting season” and how to walk through it. The waiting season is a period of time through your life where you are expectant for something. It could be that job opportunity that you’ve been praying for, your ideal significant other, a financial breakthrough and the list goes on. At some point we all find ourselves here and it’s occurred to me that most people I’ve encountered struggle with how to walk through this season and I’ve done some reading and found some ways that have been helpful to my journey.
The waiting season can be dreadful because we like quick results, we want a yes or no answer right away…. overall, we want everything our way and, on our time, but that’s not how things work. This season is important because it stems growth. We are tested in so many ways through it all, especially with patience and obedience. Enough of what I have to say about it but let’s talk about what God has to say about it. The book of Isaiah says, “those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength…” Pause for a moment, read Isaiah 40:30. This verse speaks so much of how much God can do for us, I dug into the whole chapter and these last three verses from 29-30 remind us that there is strength to be found when we wait on the Lord. His word promises that He will strengthen us when we are weary and empower us when we are weak, but we have to be able to wait on him. Waiting on God requires us to practice patience, and obedience.
Psalm 37:7 instructs us to be STILL and wait patiently. All these things are all related because one cannot be patient if they are not willing to be obedient and if you are not willing to be obedient there is no way you can be still and allow God to work according to his will. If we can’t do any of these things we will be in a continuous cycle of frustration and lack of understanding because we are still trying to hold on to control over the situation we are dealing with while we are waiting.
In life’s most recent obstacles, I found myself overly frustrated and exasperated and crying to God why he wasn’t answering me and asking him how long I must wait to walk out of my battle, and I had the biggest realization. I was refusing to relinquish whatever control I was trying to have over my battle. Rather than submitting and abandoning this season I’m in to God, I was busy trying to be a fixer and carry a weight that I was not called to bear. Once I finally paused and stepped out of my own “understanding” I saw that all God wanted me to do was be still and stop trying to have control and TRUST him.
In these waiting seasons, it may feel like we are enduring so much and like our prayers or the things that we are expectant of are so far out of reach, but have you ever wondered why God doesn’t answer our prayers right when we want him to? Think back on past situations and honestly ask yourself if God would’ve given you what you were praying for right then and there would the outcome have been the same as if he waited till when he knew you were ready and able to handle what you are asking for? More likely than not the answer is no. It would’ve been premature. We need to understand and trust that our timing can never compare to God’s timing. Like my mother says, He is never too early, never late but always on time.
In my previous post I spoke about trusting God and the book of Proverbs is a great reminder of that.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean NOT on your own understanding; In ALL your ways SUBMIT to him and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6
How can you wait on God if you don’t trust him? Think about it this way, people make promises to us and in all their human flaws we hold on to those promises so near and dear to our hearts so how much more the promises of the one who created the very ground we walk on? The one who seeks to find those who are desperate for him. I want to encourage anyone who is in the waiting season to truly think about all the things I have spoken about. Evaluate how you are walking through this waiting season. Are you walking through it by strengthening yourself through his word and declaring victory over your situation and walking as though he has already fulfilled your heart’s desire or are you walking around with questionable faith and as though you are defeated? Think about it, it is what makes all the difference.
