Wait

Perhaps the most despicable four-letter-word in all the English language is the one I have heard the most from God over the course of my life-time. Even today I was handed a sobering reminder of the terrible pain and irritation this word can have on my desires and hopes. (even when these hopes and desires might be right...in the right season). No one likes to wait. And God asking you to wait can seem like the biggest annoyance a Deity can hand you.

My conversation with God goes something like this, "Okay Lord, You love me. I feel I am following your will, listening to your voice, and doing what I am supposed to be doing at the moment I am supposed to be doing it. So can I please, please have this one thing that I really, really want?" This doesn't seem like an outrageous request, I mean doesn't the Savior of humanity see how MUCH I am giving Him? Seriously? Seriously.

I have heard this four-letter-word so many times and I wish I could tell you I always headed the voice of the Divine, or always understood that Heaven's ways and timing are above my own. I am guilty, like so many others I am certain, of "rushing" God's plan. Inevitably, "rushing" God's plan ends up being a way of train-wrecking the promise of God and ending up with a second-rate version of the dream He originally mapped out for you. I know it seems curious, but this has been my experience.

God asked me to wait today. I got mad...but then I found something, from when I was a little girl.

Being a "little" girl, might mean being thirteen (although I am no taller now than I was then, I have grown a bit wider). I am currently going through three Bibles: my current Bible (which I have used during my 20s); a new Bible; and the Thompson Chain Reference KJV Bible I used as a teenager. I am going through slowly and highlighting some of the passages that have brought me strength and comfort over the last decade of my life. Reading my teenage Bible is humbling. I was so attuned to the voice of God, so hungry for His word. The markings in my Bible tell a journey all their own, much moreso than the Bible I have used over the past four years. As I read through Isaiah, I came across a passage I probably have not read since I was 13:

Then you will know I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame. (49:23)

Others will know God is the Lord, through our waiting. Waiting is a command just like "love thy neighbor as thyself," these are qualities that set the Christ-follower apart from the unbeliever in the eyes of the world. Instant gratification is so easily accomplished in our world, it can be a purchase, a decision, a plane ride away...but there is something about knowing that not only are you doing the right thing, but at the right time that makes the reward so much sweeter. Often denying your flesh on the journey to who you will become, who you will be with, and what you will have define the promise when you finally reach it:

Behold I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how show my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.(Isaiah 48:10-11)

God is seeking glory through our lives in every situation and circumstance. Even when we are not aware. I remember the call I felt God place on my life as a young girl taken from Isaiah 55:5 to "summon nations I know not, that nations that know not me shall hasten unto me, for my GOD, the Holy one of Israel has endowed me with splendor." As a thirteen year old girl this sounded great and grand. I would tell everyone God had given me this promise but I had absolutely no vehicle to proclaim the promise. It was only through pain, the death of my aunt and suicide of my cousin; the torment of my jaw injury, the debilitating hatred of myself through an eight-year struggle with anorexia; that God's glory was fully able to be seen through me. I have shared my testimony in six countries. A testimony I did not have the day God gave me a word that I would "Summon Nations" for Him.

Often "wait" simply is a challenge for something better, something whole, something beautiful.

God is asking me again, today to wait. I must say, even after seeing the faithfulness of being faithful to the "in-between" time that it is hard for me. So much uncertainty surrounds what I am being asked to do. Will the opportunity even be there when God's through with whatever it is he's pulled his favorite four-letter-word out for?

I am so tempted to be discouraged, so tempted to blame God of forgetting me, of leaving me alone, without counselor, without companionship, and sometimes without Him. (it feels).

Let me leave you with the story of how I feel, quoted so beautifully, once again from the book of Isaiah:

Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel.

"My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God?" (vs. 27)

How many times have you been there? "It's my right to be in love. It's my right to be happy. It's my right to live in abundance. Didn't you promise me all these things God? Why must I watch even the wicked prosper while I must wait? Surely I am the exception to Your rule, You really aren't looking out for Brea's interest." But continue reading His promise:

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not grow faint or grow weary;

His understanding is unsearchable. (vs. 28)

Amen to that, because right now you are making NO sense asking me to hurry up and WAIT.

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might, he increases strength.

Even youths shall faint and be weary,

and young men shall fall exhausted;

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles:

they shall run and not be weary;

they shall walk and not faint.

Sure, I could try to hurry God up on this one, maybe help Him out a little, but the ever-living, ever-lasting, never-failing God of all creation has called me, today, to "wait."

Even when we do not understand, or agree, let us make this "waiting" an act of worship, just as faith, hope, and love. Because there is beauty, and strength on the other side.