I bet you're waiting for something right now. And I don't mean the traffic light to change or the water pot to boil. I mean, you're really waiting, aren't you?
God wants me to want Him more than any particular outcome or hope fulfilled.
I waited a long time for two of my heart's greatest desires, marriage and motherhood. But saying "I do" and "We're due" didn't exonerate me from The Waiting Game. Every day of my life continues to offer me a myriad of opportunities to wait on God for one desire or another.
Waiting can be agonizing, can't it? It's one of the hardest things I've ever had to do—and I have to do it all the time.
So why after all these years of waiting am I not good at it yet? Why can it still feel so excruciating?
A New Way to Tell Time
Over the past four years—years that have held some of the greatest joys and blessings of my life—God has gifted my family with a host of hardships that have felt like "too much" too many times to count. In the course of these years, I have often found myself in a place of desperation and despair as I look at our circumstances.
Why would God have me wait so long for marriage and motherhood, and then gift them to me wrapped in so much trouble?
Have you been here too, dear one? Have you walked out of one waiting room only to enter into another?
When I tick-tock to the sound of my own finite clock, God seems late. Silent. Disengaged. Perhaps even mean.
But patiently, graciously, over the past two decades, God has been teaching me how to tell time His way. His is an infinite timetable, and He is never tardy.
In fact, God is always right on time—even when it takes centuries to see His purposes fulfilled.
Consider a few of the long waits we read of in Scripture:
- Abraham and Sarah waited 25 years to see God's promise of a son fulfilled.
- Jacob and Esau made amends 20 years after their vehement falling out.
- David waited at least 15 years (perhaps as many as 20) between the time of his anointing to be king and actually taking the throne.
- Joseph was reconciled to his brothers two decades after they sold him as a slave.
- Moses was 80 years old when he began to lead God's people.
- A woman was sick and bleeding for 12 years before Jesus healed her.
- After the apostle Paul's conversion, somewhere between 11 and 17 years passed before he began his first missionary journey.
God is not in a rush, is He? He sees the end from the beginning, and He knows all things. So while I want action now and problems fixed yesterday, God says, "Come to Me and trust that I am good."
The Rub
I'm a doer, a go-getter, an ambitious and creative soul—so Lord, show me how to fix this! I'll do whatever it takes to see my son healed, mend that broken relationship, and alleviate our financial pressures! Show me, Lord!
Instead, He shows me something infinitely better. The problem is not yet solved, there are loose ends, there is grief and confusion—but there He is, standing smack-dab in the middle of my mess and gifting me more of Himself.
He wants me to want Him more than any particular outcome or hope fulfilled.
And as my desire for Him begins to outweigh my desire for results, I am further freed from my bondage to lifelong sins of pride, anxiety, and fear of man. I have a greater desire for kingdom work than the pursuit of my own temporal comforts. I am eager to comfort those around me who are also hurting.
And so He continues to make me wait on Him.
This waiting, it is working miracles in us, dear one. It is setting us free. It's lighting our hearts on fire for the gospel. Look up at Christ again today, and keep your gaze there. Lean the full weight of your welfare into Him.
For He is always good, and He is never late.
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