Meeting God in the Wait
What do you do when you find yourself in the wait?
We have all been there, haven’t we?
… in the wait …
Waiting for God to answer.
Waiting for mountains to move.
Waiting for provision.
Waiting for healing.
Waiting for breakthrough.
Waiting for the storm to pass.
Waiting for someone … anyone … to notice that you are in the wait.
Some people seem to get breakthrough so easily, don’t they?
For me … it has not been like that.
I have spent years … literally years … in the wait.
Years waiting for God to answer.
Years waiting for God to move.
Years waiting for provision.
Years waiting for healing.
Years waiting for breakthrough.
Years waiting for the storm to pass.
Years waiting for someone to join me in the wait.
(Who knew the wait was such a lonely place?)
Years in the wait. Years.
“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable.” – Isaiah 41:28
Sometimes I wonder if the wait is more a place of power and less a place of weakness than I first perceived it to be.
The days … the years … that I have spent in the wait are the very times that I have found myself on my knees in His presence.
This powerful position makes the wait bearable … it makes the wait purposeful.
The days … the years … that I have lingered in the wait call me to spend more time in the Word of God.
The Word comforts my weary heart while I am in the wait.
The days … years … that I have spent in the wait … I invariably spend more time in worship.
Worship takes my eyes off what I don’t have … and places them firmly on Who He is!
What power there is when I worship!
It is in the wait I discover I am not alone.
He is with me in the wait.
Did you even read what I just wrote … the Lord is with me in the wait!
There is nobody I would rather wait with than Him.
There is no one I would rather hang out with than Him.
There is no one.
Just Him.
He never gets frustrated with me … or with the wait.
That humbles me.
I want to be like Him.
I don’t want to be frustrated in the wait … or with Him.
The time spent in the wait turns my attention away from stuff and the wait turns my heart toward Him.
I find it a far more powerful choice to simply wait with Him than to wait for His hand to move.
It’s in the wait that my life is joined to eternity’s focus, to heaven’s power, and to His perpetual love.
I become like Him … when I am with Him in the wait!
I am able to access all that He has for me when I spend time in the wait with Him.
It is in the wait that I am changed.
Revolutionized.
Transformed.
It is in the wait that I am given a strength I never before had.
It is impossible to wait and remain weak when one waits with Him.
One needs strength to wait.
Strength is found in the companionship of Him Who is strong.
If you wait alone … what frustration ensues!
If you wait alone … what weakness prevails!
If you wait alone … how slowly time passes.
But when you wait with Him … what miracles happen!
“He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power.” – Isaiah 41:29
Waiting is certainly not for wimps.
But then again … maybe waiting IS for wimps.
Perhaps it is in the wait that wimps become warriors.
Have you ever noticed in the wait … temptation strikes with a ferocity unheard of in other places and in other situations?!
Have you ever noticed in the wait … you are tempted to say things you shouldn’t even think much less have the audacious bravado to say?!
Have you ever noticed in the wait … the temptation to compromise beliefs and to forget the promises of God is at a dangerously high level?!
It is Who you wait with that makes all the difference!
If you are forced to wait … then please wait with Him.
It is also … in the wait with Him … that I discover a tenacity that I have never possessed.
It is also … in the wait with Him … that I discover the purpose for which I have been born.
It is also … in the wait with Him … that vision is refined and that desires are purified.
I need the wait.
I need to wait with Him.
I need the work that happens inside me during the wait.
“Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly …” – Isaiah 40:30
I think that I am only waiting … just hanging around until life happens … just tapping my toes and drumming my fingers. But He sees the wait as the stuff of which life is made.
God created me for the wait and for the work that it accomplishes in me.
God designed the wait to be the place where treasure is discovered in my life.
The wait: It’s the place where I become the person He desires.
The wait: It’s the place where the pressure reveals the value.
The wait.
Him and me.
Me and Him.
It’s my favorite place.
“Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.” – Isaiah 40:31
Thanks for listening to my heart this week. As you know by now, my heart is truly not a perfect heart, but it is a heart that is filled to overflowing with gratitude for the life I have been given and for the people who walk with me. And, it continues to be a heart that is relentlessly chasing after God and all that He is.