I like to think of myself as a patient person. I soon learn that’s not the case when God has me wait for direction or for a dire circumstance to change. How much longer, Lord? We know all too well the impatience of a small child, but even as grown women we find it difficult.
Wherever the Lord has you right now, my prayer is that you would find comfort and peace in the One who loves you with a perfect love.
Here’s a few things I have learned in my own seasons of waiting.
Acceptance
As we wait, when we accept things for how they are, peace ensues. This doesn’t mean we are content with sin or the pain of a heart-wrenching circumstance, instead we are choosing to trust in God’s sovereignty. Any trial we face, has first gone through His loving hands before it’s entered our lives. This means, that in His perfect wisdom, He’s allowed it for our good and ordained it as that which will bring Him the highest glory. Romans 8:28-29 There is purpose in the pain.
Walking By Faith
Second, as we wait, we are given the opportunity to apply 2 Corinthians 5:7, “for we walk by faith and not by sight.” While we cannot see or even understand what the Lord is doing, we can counsel our hearts to look past our circumstance and rest in God’s character and in His promises.
Scripture steadies our gaze on our beloved Jesus while the Holy Spirit carefully applies those truths to our needy hearts. It’s here that Psalm 27:13 becomes an anthem in our wait- “Yet I am confident I will see the LORD’s goodness while I am here in the land of the living.”
Do The Next Thing
Last, we learn to simply “do the next thing” as Elisabeth Elliott has shared. It’s easy to get stuck in long periods of waiting where anxiety, thoughts going in circles, and indecisiveness can overtake us.
Doing the next thing means we make one decision at a time. We look ahead to a single step and this helps to remove the haze.
Is prayer your next thing? Then do it. Meditating on scripture? Open your bible and do it. Do you need to ask forgiveness? Then go and do it. Seek the Lord on what that next thing is for you, and He will tell you.
God loves us with a perfect love. He’s in absolute control and knows how long our waiting should be to produce in us that which is best and glorifying to Him.
So as we wait, let us find rest in His sovereignty, His word and doing the next thing.
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