Have you ever had to wait? Whether in a doctors office, or waiting in line at the grocery store, or the coffee shop waiting to have your order taken? And it seems like it takes forever to just get there. Or it feels like everyone is ignoring you while your waiting for your turn but your trying to get someones attention and they are not paying attention to you and you get frustrated but don’t know how to deal with the situation. Another question is, have you ever waited to find something? or someone? In another example, it could be like your in a transition siting in limbo waiting for the next thing to open up or do, but your still waiting not sure what to do. So you wait, wait to hear from God, you wait for a door to open, then when a door opens you ask yourself will I know how to walk through it? Will I know that it is truly God’s voice? Will I make the right choice? Can God’s timing be right? Can it be perfect? Or what if your in a season of singleness and you keep asking yourself does God really have someone set aside for me? Or what if you in a season of waiting for work and you keep hitting a brick wall when it comes to applying places, and you ask yourself why does this keep happening? Furthermore, deep in your heart you know God is good. You know he is trustworthy and that his character can be trusted. But then you look around you and it seems like everyone else is getting what you desire or want out of life but its just outside your reach. For instance look at this way say your on a football field and your getting set up for a play, and the quarterback tries to throw you the ball, but it fumbles and it appears the opposing team gets the ball because the ball fumbled. So you get frustrated because the ball was just outside your reach when it fumbled into the opposing teams reach. Then the next question that you would generally ask yourself is, what am I doing wrong, or what am I lacking? Yet what if God is calling us to wait to be refined, to be transformed into more of his likeness, or to be cultivated to go out and do what God has entrusted you to do. What if God is asking you to trust him to take you beyond what you expected or ever thought he could do through you? What if God is asking you to step out in faith with him to show his love would you take it? Would you let him refine you? Would you trust him if everything else fades away? The real question is, would you trust God with the call he has put on your life and his timing? This question can be hard at times to answer but in the end God’s love and character still proves true. There is a quote from Rebekah Lyons, that I want to share, she says, “In the same way, we can know the call of God on our lives and feel anxious to get to it, but God sometimes calls us to wait as he refines us, as he shows himself to be our redeemer, rescuer, and healer. We must confess that his timing is best, and trust and declare that the waiting will bring us into a place of readiness.” (Lyons, 2017, pg.127, You Are Free, Be Who You Already Are). But then it dawned on me, what if its a lack of trusting God and surrendering to his plan. What if its not about knowing every single detail and trusting that he's in my midst and that he could be preparing me for a readiness to take on the next season of life. What if its about declaring his timing is far better then mine. What if its about waiting to be in a place of trust and a place of being ready for the next step. Compared to a place of discontentment or distrust. This verse in Zephaniah is a great reminder to me, in how God is in my midst and that he’s got my back. “The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exalt over you with loud singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17ESV). To be completely transparent it is far to easy to be distracted by things or even things you want or things you want to accomplish. Also it is easy to be distracted by not knowing all the details about life, and sometimes trusting God can be hard. However, trusting him brings peace, because he is trustworthy and good. Even if the path is unknown to us it is not unknown to him. For he knows all things and loves us unconditionally. So are you waiting to find it too? To find trust in his plan and rest in his love.
References:
English Standard Version Study Bible (2008) Crossway Publishing, Wheaton, IL.
Lyons, Rebekah (2017) You Are Free, Be Who You Already Are, Zondervan Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI.
Photo Credit (2017) wix.com