Watching and Waiting

“I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in His word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than the watchmen wait for morning, more than watchmen wait for morning.” Psalm 130:5-6 

 

Remember long road trips as a kid? Your parents had packed up the car with what seemed like the whole house, you had all the snacks you could want, and you were ready to go with usually more entertainment then you actually needed. You were stoked to go on vacation and watch your movies on your cool iPod.

But then. You sat in the car for an hour. And another hour. And then another. And the ever so famous, “Are we there yet?” came from your lips a good three hundred times, or so, that’s probably what our parents felt like.

You had to wait to get to where you were going, even though you started out excited.

Waiting sucks.

I think we can all agree on that. We’ve all known it since our first road trip. No matter how excited you are to get to your destination. No matter how prepared you believe you are. Waiting just sucks.

But so stinkin often, God tells us to just wait. To wait on Him to move. To wait for His perfect timing. To literally just sit still and talk with Him and not focus on the things we are ready to get to.

God has me in a major season of waiting, or really a lot of smaller seasons of waiting all happening at the same time. And I there are so many days I feel my patience running thin and my strength draining to empty. Because some of those “not yet’s” from the Lord are hard on their own, let alone stacked together into one jumbled mess.

You know, I think at some point in time, we all believe we are “prepared to wait.” You know, like we actually know what it is going to take out of us to have to live life while it feel like a good chunk of it is on pause, just hanging in the air over our heads. Sometimes, we think we’re prepared to have God look at us and say “yes, but not now” or just the one word…”wait.”

But let’s be real, that’s not what we want. There are days I would rather be told no than to just hold on a little longer. Because that begs the question, “but God, how MUCH longer?”

And God knows. HE KNOWS IT’S HARD. He never really said it was going to be easy. If we’re honest, sometimes it’s the pauses in our lives that keep us coming back to God and grow our relationship with Him. And even amidst my, at times, kicking and screaming, God has taught me SO. MANY. THINGS. from having to wait on Him. Like, SOOOOO many things.

One of the verses He has given to me is Isaiah 43:19. “See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

I love how this verse ties into the song Starlight from Bethel. The chorus says “You’re not far away you come in close. Even as I wait you come in close.”

God is continuously doing new things within us when we allow Him to. God never wants to leave us the way He found us. Encountering God always leaves us changed, even in our daily walk. But sometimes that new thing doesn’t just happen overnight. God says He is making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. I mean I know God is God and He can do things in an instant but, where would that put us? How would we grow? We would see His glory sure, but would our hearts be any different?

Waiting on God has kept me on my knees. I have fought continuously to lay down my will to His and it is HARD STUFF. But if I’m honest with myself, God knows what He is doing. The ways He has spoken to my heart in the pain of this season and drawn close are so precious to me. The things that He has taught me not only about Him, but also about myself are priceless. Because if I had rushed ahead like I wanted it would have been all shades of bad. Not even necessarily because of wrong timing. But because I needed to grow. The kind of growing that happens in the difficulty of waiting.

So, for all my fellow comrades waiting on the Lord, watching to see how, or even if, He is actually working while you feel stuck, keep pressing on. Yes, waiting has its pains. But when we shift our perspective to Jesus and not that feeling of being unable to move in any direction, it has it’s joys too. Because God is always faithful.