Day 15 :: Blessing can come in the Waiting
Right now we’re living in a townhouse that isn’t my favorite. Most of my pretty things are packed away, the windows are bare, the bathroom door is off so that I have room to bathe my children. Our relationships are few; we rarely have plans on the weekends. We’re living in a time of transition.
We knew in moving here that we’d be here for only 7 months, but we felt it best to come as a family. Bradley is in school, and once he graduates we’ll be moving on to another place. And we don’t know where we’re going. Here we are less than three months from his graduation date and still no word on where they’re sending us.
This kind of waiting drives me nuts. I like to anticipate things, plan for the next big life event, have my ‘ducks in a row’. With children I like those things even more, and when I think about choosing schools, therapists for Mason, a place to live, and all of the other issues that come with a move, I start to get impatient, and just a little bit irritable.
We are waiting for answers, direction, the next step. But all we have is silence.
Maybe you are waiting too? Waiting to see your dreams unfold. Waiting for a spouse. Waiting for healing. Waiting for a child. Waiting for….you fill in the blank. Perhaps you also feel silence.
But is it really silence that we experience? We might be waiting for what comes next, but what about what is right now? Does our desire to be in the next place, or have the next thing, hinder our involvement in the present?
I’m not just talking about physical involvement, doing things. Sometimes my frustration in the waiting causes me to miss what God is doing in me. How He wants to take this season of waiting to change me.
Elisabeth Elliot said, “He makes us wait. He keeps us on purpose in the dark. He makes us walk when we want to run, sit still when we want to walk, for He has things to do in our souls that we are not interested in.”
Is it possible that by disliking the waiting I’m exhibiting a disinterest in God’s soul-work?
What if waiting is the blessing? We don’t know what God is doing. We can’t begin to put ourselves in His role. There may be work that He needs to do in us, work that we might not like, deep soul-cleansing that takes time, maybe even fire.
Yielding ourselves to God’s timing might yield a fruitful harvest in our souls, a blessing that God is working out.
“For it is God who works in you, both to work for His good pleasure,” Philippians 2:13.
As I’ve struggled to embrace this season of waiting on our next move, God is graciously bringing me to a place of acceptance. To enjoy right now. And you know what? I’m starting to love it.
I don’t mind the house anymore (for the most part). I love that our family has so much time together. God is opening my eyes to people that are in my life here, and is giving me avenues to build relationships that I hadn’t expected. But do you want to know the sweetest part? The Lord is uncovering things in my heart that I hadn’t seen before and it’s wonderful.
In her book, A Million Little Ways, Emily Freeman says, “…the waiting can also grow us, shape us from the inside out for sacred work. This is a kind of work that happens only in the secret place of abiding in the presence of Christ even in the midst of broken dreams and tired circumstances.” (p 147),
God wants us to be patient. Scripture is full of verses about waiting on the Lord. Not for Him to show up–He never left; not to be God–He never changes. We are to wait for His timing in all things, for His perfect working out of the story that He has been unfolding since the beginning of time. Our life is a part of that story, but He is writing it, not us.
And He wants us to rest in Him as we wait. To come near to Him and know Him deeper. We might wait for a long time, maybe the answer will come tomorrow. Either way, we can choose to trust in the Lord, and bless Him while we wait.
When we embrace the time of waiting as a time to embrace Jesus, He will work wonders in our hearts.
This is Day 15 of: Made to Pour, Living a life of Blessing