I haven’t felt much like writing anything deep or meaningful here for awhile (did I ever?). It’s definitely not for a lack of heavy stuff on my mind or heart– I just haven’t felt ready to be vulnerable with it. Most of my external processing of this season of life and what God has been teaching me has been happening elsewhere. For the last eight weeks I have been co-facilitating the Monday night Women’s Bible study at CTK. Each week, Deni and I alternate sharing a devotional of some kind before the group discussion and video teaching. God has been so faithful to give me a topic each time my turn comes around.
This afternoon I thought that maybe I should post what I shared last night. I truly felt that God put this topic on my heart and maybe it will benefit someone who reads it here.
Waiting
Until this afternoon I had NO idea what I was going to share tonight. I knew God would be faithful and provide something so I wasn’t too worried. I went to coffee with my very good friend and mentor this morning. I had a rough week last week and needed to check in and confess some bad attitudes, lack of faith and mistrust. We had a great heart-to-heart and I went away feeling grateful and loved.
One of the many topics we discussed was the idea of waiting on God through a difficult season. In general, I am not a person that waits well. I am impatient, especially when I am uncomfortable. I want jobs to do. I want a list of things that I can work on. I want to be busy feeling like I have some semblance of control. I want God’s anointing and empowerment my way to do the work that I think is important and that I want done. But that is not the way it works! Pricilla Shirer makes the point in our study, “Your task is to rely on the power of God who indwells you so you can be empowered to do what you cannot do on your own.”
Time passes between the anointing and the fulfillment of God’s plan and purpose. The waiting God allows us to do prepares us for what He is going to trust us to endure. Pricilla said, “Often servanthood and submission mark the truest test of the anointed person. David was no less anointed by God when serving than later when he sat on the throne.”
“David’s anointing was not merely to lead… That same anointing was to empower him to walk the road to his destination and fulfill each obligation along the way. God empowered him not just to rule as king but to have patience until he sat on the throne, to submit to authority, to serve and to have faith in God’s promise despite the circumstances.”
Abraham was undoubtedly going to be “the father of many nations” from the time God promised that he would be, yet God allowed him to wait a long time, through many seasons, until that promise would come to fulfillment. There were some things God wanted to prepare him for—for example—getting to a place where he knew without question that Isaac was a gift and belonged to God no matter what God asked of Abraham.
As we learned in our lesson this week, opposition to the anointing can come at anytime, even while waiting to begin to step into the work of their specific calling. We see in the accounts of David, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Esther, Daniel, Job, Paul, and so many others, times of grief, hardship, opposition, attack, false accusation and waiting. Through these times of trial God begins to prepare them and strengthen them for the ministry He would call them to. Through the waiting seasons they become more prepared to walk righteously and live more devotedly to God.
Even Jesus experienced a waiting time. He was competently debating Scripture in the Temple at twelve years of age but did not begin His ministry for eighteen more years. God was at work preparing the world to receive His Son and preparing His Son to fulfill His purpose.
One of the things God has been teaching me is, instead of only asking for deliverance, I need to come to a place of asking God for more fortitude to endure and for clarity about what it is that He may be trying to teach me in waiting times.
Cam was unexpectedly laid-off at the end of September. Initially, my response was to trust God, to have peace, to wait on God for whatever door he may choose to open next. As the weeks passed I began to notice that my prayers had changed to “Just fix it now…please”. One day as I was praying that way, I knew in my Spirit that God’s response was, “If I did that now you wouldn’t learn what I need you to learn and you wouldn’t have to depend on me like you do now. I want you close to me more than I want your “problem” to go away.” I didn’t like that response but I knew He was right. At a minimum, He wanted to work on some very deep and painful issues relating to trust and providing that I didn’t even know were still affecting me.
God called me to be obedient and to face what I didn’t want to. Yet, He did not ask me to face it alone or without His empowerment. As I surrendered He began a new work in me. I didn’t give in and talk myself out of allowing Him complete access to all of it. Unfortunately, although I am freer and feel like a huge weight has been lifted—this wasn’t a fix for all time. I will have to continue to allow Him to take his time and continued access to this particular wound that He may insure that it heals well. It still hurts when he attends to it and has to re-dresses it.
The following are a few principles from the book, “God Will Make a Way” by Cloud and Townsend (the authors of Boundaries). We need to sow whatever seed God gives us. It’s important to wait without trying to hurry God up. One key to help us tolerate time’s passage is to actively get involved in the process of development that God has for us. Waiting time has different seasons—we have new beginnings, growth, harvest, and times of hibernating where things look bleak. It’s not easy to submit to the tasks of the season you’re in. Time and seasons are the context in which God prepares us and transforms us.
We have a tendency to see the waiting as a problem to be solved but often it can actually be a solution to the real problem God may want to address. God may not be answering our prayer to “fix it” because the obvious problem isn’t really a problem. Sometimes there’s something in us or in someone else that God is addressing. We need to trust Him and seek Him in the waiting times and seasons.
Psalm 130:5-8
5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
6 My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
7 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
8 He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.
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