Have you ever asked yourself, "What is God trying to teach me?" or "What is God speaking to my heart right now?"
I know I ask those questions a lot.
Have you ever asked God a question only to be left in silence?
I have. We all have. We feel like our prayer is knocking on God's door, and he isn't answering, leaving us feeling cold and alone, outside his door, separated from him. We feel like God isn't hearing us, and so we assume he's turned his back on us or worse, that he's left us. We assume he doesn't care about us. He doesn't really love us. And then we become deflated by our thoughts. Why should he love me? Why should he answer my prayer? I'm worthless. I'm nobody. I'm not special. I'm not important. You know the ones.
Yesterday I read this verse in chapter 30 of Isaiah. Verse 18:
Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!
I don't know about you, but I hate waiting. I'm impatient. I want results, and I want them now. Waiting in itself is not something we like to do. We despise long lines at the grocery store, rush hour traffic, being put on hold during a phone call. We despise those things because it all involves waiting. We have a goal in mind, we know how to reach it, we want to do it as soon as possible, but something is standing in our way and making us wait. Waiting interferes with our plans and frustrates us.
Waiting is especially difficult when it's applied to God rescuing us out of the storms of our lives. In my storm of losing Hailey, I've waited for God's healing. I've waited for him to reveal his purpose for her life, for my new life without her. I've waited for God to reveal answers for what his will is for Josh's career as a pilot in the Army and my life as a military spouse. In these major life situations, I've waited...and waited...and waited.
Maybe your situation is also the loss of a loved one. Or perhaps your situation involves the illness and suffering of a loved one, being unemployed, relationship problems... fill in the blank... I'm sure you can identify a storm in your life, whether it be small and quiet or large and raging. We all have storms, and we've all experienced waiting to be rescued from them.
When I read the verse I mentioned above, I did a double take and reread it. In fact, I read it over and over again. Was I reading it right? First of all, it reveals the truths that God is compassionate and does care about us and does want to be gracious to us. He cares about our prayers. He cares about our storms. He wants to help us. He actually longs for us. Those promises are comforting, but they don't necessarily change the situations of our lives. There's still a storm, a problem, something going on, and we're still left waiting. But here in verse 18, God says those who wait for him are blessed! To me it doesn't seem natural that waiting and blessed are in the same sentence together, but they are. What an idea to ponder...
As God sometimes does, he 'spoke' to me about this again yesterday. This time I was reading a book. I read, "Waiting is trusting in God when things seem hopeless." I'm not sure why, but this quote just stood out to me. I think it is perhaps one of the best definitions of waiting I have ever read. Most of the time when we're in our 'storm' and we're waiting, we struggle with our lack of control over the situation. We can't manipulate events, people, time, etc. to work out how we want it to work out. We feel helpless, and often times since we can't imagine the solution, we feel hopeless. This is the role of faith; trusting God when you're waiting and things feel hopeless. And this is hard. It's really hard. I can say so from experience.
But like Isaiah 30:18 claims, if we trust in God and wait for Him, we will be blessed. The Bible mentions the benefits of waiting and trusting in God so many times that I can't begin to reference them, but you won't know them until you do it.
Now I must add some disclaimers here. First, a blessing or being blessed is not always what we imagine it to be. It doesn't mean things will work out like the happy ending we envision in our mind. It doesn't mean we won't feel pain, we won't hurt, we won't suffer. Second, waiting here doesn't mean sitting back and hoping things work out soon. Waiting applies specifically to a trust in God, to praying to God, to waiting for God to work things out according to his will. Third, throw out any time constraints you've put on waiting. Waiting could be an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, a decade, or most of your life. God doesn't work according to our schedules and time tables. So be prepared for that.
I've written about these things before here or there, but here is what I've learned about praying, waiting, and God. First, if you need to pray and want to communicate with God, you need to believe in and trust in him and his son first. You can't live your life for yourself, ignoring God, and throwing out prayers for help every now and then and expect him to answer or to understand his answer. God needs to know you and you need to seek him (Matthew 7:7). God created you and loves you. But he can't know you and can't reveal his love to you until you ask.
Secondly, I've learned there are Biblical guidelines on how to pray. The greatest lesson I've learned about prayer is praying for God's will to be done. If you pray for his will to be done in your life or your situation, you can trust that it will. But you have to understand that his will might not be yours. (I don't know why, but Garth Brook's song "Unanswered Prayers" always come to my mind when I think of this.) God will answer your prayers, but it might not be the way you would have answered them, and it might not be when you want them answered. Therefore, I have also learned another important lesson, which is to ask God to give you wisdom to understand his will and his plans.
Third, I've learned to wait. I won't say I've mastered it, because it remains difficult to do, and I think it always will. But just wait. Wait with God. Sometimes he just wants you right where you are and to rest in his arms and lean on him. Trust him. Wait. Endure. God says you will be blessed. It will develop your character, strengthen you, strengthen your faith, give you confidence, give you hope, and won't leave you disappointed.
Fourth, I've learned from my experiences in these past 8 months that God will always come through and will always rescue you. He has rescued me. He has answered my prayers. And with some things, I am continually in a state of being rescued and waiting on him. But that doesn't change the fact that he will answer my prayers of rescuing me and for his will to be done in my life. And whether I am, or you are, waiting or being rescued, God loves us.
So what is your situation right now? Are you in a storm?
Are you seeking God and coming to him in prayer? What is your prayer?
What answer is God giving you? Could he be telling you to wait?
How can this time of waiting and trusting be beneficial to you?
Again, I know this might sound weird, but I don't feel this post is for me. I've written about these things sporadically over the past few months, but I feel this might be for you?
Lord, Thank you for longing for us, for loving us, for waiting for us to come to you, and for rescuing us. I pray for the one reading my words today. I ask that you use my words to speak your heart to the heart of this reader. Reveal yourself to her/him. May s/he seek you, know the beauty and wonder of your love, the comfort of waiting and resting in your arms, and the joy of the hope you've given us through your son Jesus Christ. Amen!
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