When God Asks Us to Wait...
& Trusting that He is Always Good
God has not promised to rescue us according to our time schedule. If it appears that your prayers are unanswered, do not dishonor The Lord with unbelief. Waiting in faith is a high form of worship. ~ Charles Spurgeon
I feel that I am in a constant state of trying to find balance in my life...loving my kids and husband ferociously as God wants me to love them- and yet somehow holding loosely to them and remembering that they belong to Him. Taking necessary time to play and have fun with my kids while also maintaining our home... at least to some level of decency. Trying to eat healthy and feed my family healthy while also enjoying the foods that God gave us and the budget that He's given us. And, probably the most long-standing battle for balance in my life...
Trusting that God loves to give good things to His children- that He delights in doing us good- when inside my soul, fears and doubts are swirling and I find myself just expecting the next tough thing or the next bad news and that what I would define as good is not always what God sees is good for me.
In many ways, I feel that one of the consistent characteristics of my life is waiting. Sometimes I feel like my life is one big WAIT. :-) Waiting is one of the hardest things in the WORLD! And for that very reason, I think it is one of the best places to be. (Keep in mind I am saying this as I wait for bloodwork results and a fog of unknowns ahead...it is stretching my faith just to be able to type those words!) The WAIT is where we grow. The fact that we are finite beings who are dependent on an omniscient, omnipotent, all-wise God is why this is so difficult and yet so so good for us. Waiting is a reminder to me of my place before God. I am the creation, He is the Creator. As Job is knocked into place, so am I... "Where were YOU when I laid the foundation of the earth?" (Job 38:4 emphasis mine) The entire rest of this chapter is God displaying and "proving" to Job His wisdom and sovereignty over His creation. Seems like it would be such an easy thing to trust the One who created the entire universe and holds it together with the details of our lives, doesn't it?
Waiting doesn't always mean that the thing we are waiting for is guaranteed at the end of the wait. So then what? What if we get to the end of the wait and the answer is "no" to that job or that child or the diagnosis is terminal instead of healing? These are questions I've had to wrestle with. What's the point in waiting? Wouldn't waiting be so much easier if we knew the outcome at the end? If I knew I was going to "get" the thing I was waiting for (healing, a job, a child, a spouse, provision) then it takes away the need for faith and the opportunity to grow. But what I'm striving for is to not focus on the thing I'm waiting FOR, but rather on who I am waiting ON. As a Christian, isn't that what waiting is really all about anyway? I want these times to cause my eyes to be on Christ and knowing Him and trusting Him, not on whether He's going to grant me my desires. That is the cry of my heart, it is something by His grace I am seeking but it is not a small feat to arrive here. It's what I desire and my spirit is willing but my flesh is so weak sometimes.
Many who read this will know of the struggle I've spoken of and shared many times regarding the goodness of God and what that looks like when circumstances look so dark. Well, the Lord has been so kind and has grown me in this area and I have been so encouraged in feeling like I'm understanding it...like maybe I'm finally "getting" it. But, friends, what I am seeing is that it will likely always be a struggle for me on this earth. I will always need to battle for a joy in accepting what the goodness of God really is and that my circumstances do not qualify God as good or not. He is good no matter what. I know this in the depths of my being and the faith that He has granted me leaves me unable to believe anything else. Ultimately that is where I have to leave things. I cannot deny Him, even when I don't understand. Even if things seem cruel. I can believe no other than that He is good and that what He is doing in my life is ultimately good. It is a blind faith in some sense but it is also a faith whose foundation is the infallible words of Scripture's promises. I don't understand things OFTEN and my flesh fights it but I know it is true. His ways are HARD sometimes, I can't deny that. His path HURTS sometimes and it causes sorrow and heartache. We have to WRESTLE with Him sometimes as Jacob did. To pretend like things aren't really hard sometimes would make me a hypocrite. There are struggles of my heart that run deep and that I'm not sharing here that are between me and God (and some between me and my sweet husband)...as I type this my heart is battling through some heavy burdens, things I'm fighting to understand.
I certainly don't have life figured out. There are so many ways of God- things in my life and in others'- that I don't understand and maybe never will this side of glory. And maybe even in glory they won't even matter to me any more in the face of Christ, as C.S. Lewis suggested. I want to be able to just rest in knowing that He is good and if He withholds things from me that I desire or gives me that which I don't desire, THIS is what is GOOD. Psalm 73:28 says "But as for me, the nearness of God is my good."
Sometimes I regretfully find myself feeling sorry for myself or comparing to others, tending towards bitterness, complaining...and I am immediately and tenderly reminded of how much I have been given, how much God has done for me and how much I have to be grateful for. THIS is not heaven. Why do I insist on trying to make it so? I am not promised anything in this life, though I find myself foolishly expecting life to be easy and every desire fulfilled when and how I want. I pray for a humble acceptance and a deep understanding that that is not what God has promised to us. In fact He has said "In the world you will have trouble." (John 16:33) and "Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you." (I Peter 4:12)
Do I WAIT (long for) heaven the way I wait for the things I desire? This certainly feels unrealistic sometimes but it's something to be challenged with for sure. When I am waiting on God, am I really waiting on HIM? If I am "waiting on God" and I receive that job or that child or that good health report but have along the way missed HIM, I have really gained nothing. But, if in that waiting, my faith has been strengthened, my grip on circumstances loosened, my longing for heaven heightened, and my love for Christ in all His beauty deepened, then I have gained everything.
Let us press on to know the Lord and if you are in a season of WAITING right now, I leave you with this verse of encouragement:
