Waiting

Waiting…

So I’m in this waiting game. Well it’s not a game… it is waiting on God to do what He is going to do and trying to be faithful to Him in the meantime.

Waiting is not just sitting around doing nothing while God is doing all the work. No actually it is hard work to wait. To not try and fix things myself is hard. To not jump into what I think needs to happen is hard work. To trust God for the very next step is hard work. To live in “believing” and not in doubt is hard work. To speak life and not death over what is happening is hard work. The living day by day not know the what, where, how and when is hard work.

While waiting is hard, there is a peace in letting God do the work. And knowing that whatever happens He will work it for my good (Rom 8:28) has peace in it. There is peace in believing He has a plan and is working it all out. But it is hard to keep believing when things happen that doesn’t look like they are flowing toward the goal you think is in the future. It is hard work when it doesn’t come as fast as you think it should. It is hard work when doubt creeps in and slaps you upside the head.

So what does God have to say about it?

Lamentations 3:24

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”

Isaiah 64:4

Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

Isaiah 30:18

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!

Psalm 130:5

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.

Psalm 40:1

 I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.

1 Corinthians 4:5

Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.

Hebrews 6:15

And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.

In a previous writing I spoke of Abraham’s promise to become the father of many nations. He was old, dried up, and Sara was unable to have children, yet… God gave Abraham what He promised.

So while I sit here and evaluate… I know I must wait. I can either wait on God and live in peace… or I can wait in anguish and try to figure things out and live in constant turmoil.

It is my choice on how I wait.

I love the song by John Waller “While I’m Waiting” from the movie Fireproof. It speaks so much of what I feel.

Trust

I had wrote in an earlier post that God had given me Romans 12 to read almost daily for several months. Lately it has been impressed upon me that I need to be in Romans 4.

I struggle with feeling worthy. I believe this has a lot to do with a lifelong dream I’ve had that has not been brought into reality.

I’ve had to realize that my worthiness is not in what I want in life, but who I am. And by saying “Who I am” I mean who I am in Christ and who I am because of Christ.

This is where Romans 4 comes in to play. Abraham was just an ordinary guy who was old and couldn’t have kids, but God called him to be something beyond himself. What made Abraham such a tool for God to use is trust. Abraham trusted God!

I LOVE this line in the MSG version…

…But the story we’re given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story. What we read in Scripture is, “Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own.”  (1-3)

God called Abraham, but Abraham trusted God before, get that, before anything happened in his life. And then Abraham “underwent circumcision as evidence and confirmation” before God gave Abraham the family God had promised him.

“That famous promise God gave Abraham—that he and his children would possess the earth—was not given because of something Abraham did or would do. It was based on God’s decision to put everything together for him, which Abraham then entered when he believed…” (13-15)

“This is why the fulfillment of God’s promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does. God’s promise arrives as pure gift...” (16)

I so much need this! I don’t have to be found worthy in order to receive wholeness. It is by faith and trust and embracing God for what He does I am to be found “Worthy” and then God can give me, as pure gift, what He knows the desire of my heart is.

“…Abraham was first named “father” and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do.” (17-18)

I have felt so dead that I would have never thought I could be brought back to life, but as in Ezekiel He is bringing these dry bones back to life. God is making something out of nothing in my life. He can do the same with yours. Abraham could have been hopeless, he believed anyway. Not because he saw something, but because he trusted God and didn’t live in the hopeless. He lived with hope.

“Abraham didn’t focus on his own impotence and say, “It’s hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child.” Nor did he survey Sarah’s decades of infertility and give up. He didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That’s why it is said, “Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.” But it’s not just Abraham; it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.” (19-25)

I love that, “He plunged into the promise…” How many times do I plunge into anything, much less, something I have no clue on how, why, when or where it is going to happen. NOT! I might tiptoe in, but not plung!

So if Abraham can trust God and God made him the father of great nations… then why can’t I trust God to make my life worthy of His greatness? And let me tell you, He is doing it! He is doing it! He is doing it!

I am so grateful, so thankful, so blessed! I look forward to seeing how he accomplishes the impossible. It’s a God-story, not a Christy-story! I just get to live it and see what happens!