in the waiting

does patience seem almost like a lost art nowadays? it’s as if day by day our lives become quicker and quicker, and with this, our natural response is not to try and slow things back down, but to try and keep up. if one thing takes too long it can ruin your whole mood, your whole day. but what does our lack of patience stem from? i think that is the question we all must answer.

            do you know why patience is such a hard practice to put into place? it’s because for us to put patience into practice means that whatever we had planned must not go the way we had expected it to go. all of a sudden, your vision isn’t so clear anymore, what you were so sure about earlier you begin to question. patience is murky waters; you don’t know exactly where you are headed anymore. now we have to trust someone to lead us into what we can’t see through and that is not an easy thing to do. it is not easy to give up control of our lives, but to depend on God more and more we must continue to give Him control over our lives. we have to continue to take hold of His hand, patiently walking through what we don’t understand, to receive what He has set apart for us.

            i feel like patience is a very important theme in many stories of the Bible. you see it in the story of Abraham and Sarah where God promised them a child and it took 25 years to be fulfilled. you see it with Job, Satan tests Job by destroying all of his possessions, losing his family, and taking away his health yet he never cursed God. God then blessed Job even more than his beginning by giving him twice as much as he had before. you see patience in the story of David, Samuel had anointed David, king of Israel, at 15 years old, and yet he didn’t become king until he was 30. you see it in the story of Moses and the Israelites, the Israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians for 400 years and Moses led them out of captivity and on a 40-year journey to the promised land.

            i’m sitting here wondering why God takes so long to fulfill His promises. if He promised Abraham and Sarah a child why wait 25 years? why wait another 15 years to give David his seat on the throne? why take everything away from Job? why allow the trek to the promised land to take 40 years? it almost seems unfair to make them wait this long or suffer this much, but God makes your patience have purpose. God is wanting to refine you in this season, God is wanting you to become more rooted in Him, God is wanting you to trust Him with more and more areas of your life. ultimately, God wants you to be ready for what He has prepared for you. take heart in knowing that God is a promise keeper, nothing can stop what He has promised and set apart for you. Lean into Him in the waiting, be patient in knowing that no matter how much time has passed God will come through on what He has promised.

            i know that is way easier said than done, we don’t like to wait. we want what we want when we want it. but ‘wait patiently for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord’ (Psalm 27:14). God understands that patience does not come easy and that is why He is rich in mercy and abundant in grace. we need His patience every day. we fall short of His glory day after day, yet He looks at us with a smile on His face and calls us His own.

            John 13:7 ‘what I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.’ in the waiting it is hard to understand what we are supposed to do. it is hard to see what God is doing, but when you look back on stories in your life or stories from the Bible, you see what He was doing. He is always working things together for our good.

            i will wait on You, Lord.

-n0tbychance