Works in the Waiting
"For since the world began, no ear has heard and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those that wait for him." Isaiah 64:4
To be honest, I hate waiting. I am an instant gratification kind of girl. I am a loyal member of Amazon Prime, and to be honest, it's mainly just for the free 2-day shipping and on top of that I won't buy anything unless it's Prime ready. I would rather go out and shop in a brick and mortar shop than online. I think you get the idea.
Even though I am not a big fan of waiting and I am pretty sure many are not either, how ironic is it then the word wait is mentioned over 100 times in the Bible? Waiting could even be said to be a theme of the Bible. We wait on the answer to prayers, we wait to see what God will do, we are waiting on the second coming of Jesus, we learn so much about waiting from His word and what it means to wait on Him. So, my question is, why is waiting so hard even though we know the good that God can work through our waiting.
When I sat down to think about why God chooses to have us wait I thought about a couple things:
1. To prepare us: Ephesians 2:10 says, "For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." In Genesis 1:27 we learn that we are created in His image. He created us to be like Him and after the fall, we had to be made anew through His Son's Death, Burial, and Resurrection. After we accept Christ we are better able and equipped to follow the plan He has laid out for us. God has been preparing us for His plans our entire lives and, as we learn and live through the waiting, we are growing closer to Him and depending more on Him daily.
2. To teach us: "The Lord says, 'I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you." says David in Psalm 32:8. In our waiting the Lord is continuously teaching us and listening to our hearts and cries. In the waiting we feel like we are shut off from learning or hearing anything He has to say. What i have always found funny is that is when I tend to learn the most and when I need to hear Him more, As He watches over us and what we are going through He also is teaching us in the moments we feel unteachable and unreachable by Him. No matter the valley we are in, it is the best path because it is His path for our lives.
3.To get us to trust in Him: The Psalms are full of amazing words of comfort, but are also full of confusion, pain, and waiting through the trials of life. In Psalm 27:14 David instructs us, "Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave a courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord." God has us wait at times to refine us and sometimes the waiting is to protect us. When the enemy attacks we look to the Lord to pull us out as we sit in a corner with our eyes closed waiting, impatiently I might add, for the moment of relief and clarity. The waiting He has us in is to build the trust we should have in Him. It is to fully surrender our plans, our hearts, our lives to the One who knows us better than we know ourselves and knows this time of waiting is there to help us, refine us, and not to harm us. That is a lesson He wants us to learn more than anything.
4. To protect us: In the book of Isaiah it is written in verse 41:10, "Don't be afraid, for I am with you. Don't be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand." God is our protector and our strength. He is our help and our hope everlasting. It tells us in His word not to fear many many times (the actual number is debated and varies among translations). He wants us to know that He is always with us and that should put ours fears to rest as we wait for His plan to unfold.
As we wait everything seems impossible. It feels as though the waiting will never end and trust me, I've been there. What we have to take hold of is the truth of His word. David says in Psalm 18:30, "As for God, His way is perfect! The word of the Lord is tested and tried; He is a shield to all those who take refuge and put their trust in Him." (AMP). His word has been tested through the ages of time and has always held true. Try to find one time that His word failed anyone and I promise you that you will come up empty. His word has never failed. So as we wait through whatever we are going through we can know and find peace in the fact that His word has never returned void.
My question for you at this moment, what have you been tirelessly waiting on? What has made that waiting almost or completely unbearable? The pain of waiting is never easy. It comes with the anxiousness, fear, and confusion of what we do not know and what only God knows. He uses our waiting to refine us, to change us, to bring us to the only place we need to be, centered in Him, beside Him and under His protection (a beautiful image taught to me by the wonderful Tonya Riggle). As you wait know that I am praying for you and am waiting with you and right beside you always.
In Him and for His Glory!
To be honest, I hate waiting. I am an instant gratification kind of girl. I am a loyal member of Amazon Prime, and to be honest, it's mainly just for the free 2-day shipping and on top of that I won't buy anything unless it's Prime ready. I would rather go out and shop in a brick and mortar shop than online. I think you get the idea.
Even though I am not a big fan of waiting and I am pretty sure many are not either, how ironic is it then the word wait is mentioned over 100 times in the Bible? Waiting could even be said to be a theme of the Bible. We wait on the answer to prayers, we wait to see what God will do, we are waiting on the second coming of Jesus, we learn so much about waiting from His word and what it means to wait on Him. So, my question is, why is waiting so hard even though we know the good that God can work through our waiting.
When I sat down to think about why God chooses to have us wait I thought about a couple things:
1. To prepare us: Ephesians 2:10 says, "For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." In Genesis 1:27 we learn that we are created in His image. He created us to be like Him and after the fall, we had to be made anew through His Son's Death, Burial, and Resurrection. After we accept Christ we are better able and equipped to follow the plan He has laid out for us. God has been preparing us for His plans our entire lives and, as we learn and live through the waiting, we are growing closer to Him and depending more on Him daily.
2. To teach us: "The Lord says, 'I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you." says David in Psalm 32:8. In our waiting the Lord is continuously teaching us and listening to our hearts and cries. In the waiting we feel like we are shut off from learning or hearing anything He has to say. What i have always found funny is that is when I tend to learn the most and when I need to hear Him more, As He watches over us and what we are going through He also is teaching us in the moments we feel unteachable and unreachable by Him. No matter the valley we are in, it is the best path because it is His path for our lives.
3.To get us to trust in Him: The Psalms are full of amazing words of comfort, but are also full of confusion, pain, and waiting through the trials of life. In Psalm 27:14 David instructs us, "Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave a courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord." God has us wait at times to refine us and sometimes the waiting is to protect us. When the enemy attacks we look to the Lord to pull us out as we sit in a corner with our eyes closed waiting, impatiently I might add, for the moment of relief and clarity. The waiting He has us in is to build the trust we should have in Him. It is to fully surrender our plans, our hearts, our lives to the One who knows us better than we know ourselves and knows this time of waiting is there to help us, refine us, and not to harm us. That is a lesson He wants us to learn more than anything.
4. To protect us: In the book of Isaiah it is written in verse 41:10, "Don't be afraid, for I am with you. Don't be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand." God is our protector and our strength. He is our help and our hope everlasting. It tells us in His word not to fear many many times (the actual number is debated and varies among translations). He wants us to know that He is always with us and that should put ours fears to rest as we wait for His plan to unfold.
As we wait everything seems impossible. It feels as though the waiting will never end and trust me, I've been there. What we have to take hold of is the truth of His word. David says in Psalm 18:30, "As for God, His way is perfect! The word of the Lord is tested and tried; He is a shield to all those who take refuge and put their trust in Him." (AMP). His word has been tested through the ages of time and has always held true. Try to find one time that His word failed anyone and I promise you that you will come up empty. His word has never failed. So as we wait through whatever we are going through we can know and find peace in the fact that His word has never returned void.
My question for you at this moment, what have you been tirelessly waiting on? What has made that waiting almost or completely unbearable? The pain of waiting is never easy. It comes with the anxiousness, fear, and confusion of what we do not know and what only God knows. He uses our waiting to refine us, to change us, to bring us to the only place we need to be, centered in Him, beside Him and under His protection (a beautiful image taught to me by the wonderful Tonya Riggle). As you wait know that I am praying for you and am waiting with you and right beside you always.
In Him and for His Glory!
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