Welcome to
our new series – Waiting in the Lord!
Waiting can be some of the most frustrating moments in our lives. Whether it be simple as waiting in a grocery
line or waiting for health test results, the waiting can find us agitated,
impatient, and ultimately, frustrated.
As Christians, when we pray, we expect answers from God. He tells us to go to Him in prayer and He
will deliver. Mark 11:24 states,
“Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have
received it, and it will be yours.”
God does
answer our prayers. For me, the yes and
even the no answers I seem to understand and accept. It’s the ‘wait’ response that gets me every
time. During the waiting, I find myself
working with my timeline and not God’s timeline. Often, I will work on getting the answer to
my prayer myself, in essence, taking back from God what I put into His
hands. That always ends up in a
situation that I regret.
In the
waiting, much can happen. We can
actually grow as Christians during this time.
When I was going through marital strife with my first marriage, I
constantly prayed to God for answers. He
made me wait, a VERY long time, for those answers. During that wait, though, my faith grew. My reliance on God not just for answers to my
marriage but other areas of my life began to grow. I delved deeper into my Bible. I was looking for answers there, God was
having my Bible knowledge grow.
While
waiting, we don’t typically see how we are growing. It is after waiting that we can see where we
were and how far we have come. In a
world where immediate gratification is becoming widely accepted, it is easy to
take back what we are giving God in prayer so we can be more comfortable with
our situation. We can view waiting as
suffering. This is when I turn to one of
my favorite verses in the Bible. Romans
5:3-5 shares, “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because
we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and
character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame,
because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy
Spirit, who has been given to us.”
Our Lord is
good, all the time! Yes, He is good even
in the waiting. We need to slow down and
realize that God’s timeline and outcomes will always be better than our own. We need to move from immediacy to slowness. We need to view our time of waiting as a time
to grow – in faith and in knowledge. How
can you grow during the wait? Get into the
Bible and see what it has to say about your situation. Seek out a Christian friend to have coffee
with. Select a church group to get
involved in. It’s your time to grow and
see how far you have come when the wait if over! Have Simple Faith!
Video that
complements this post: Growth in the Waiting
Dearest
Lord, help me to grow when I am in a waiting period for my prayer. May I leave with you what I give you until
you answer my prayer and guide me to areas where I can grow. Amen!
