Waiting on God
Today I heard something that stuck with me. I was listening to a podcast and a girl was talking about some things the Lord had done over the course of her life, and she said something that I have felt but have never heard spoken out loud. It was something that both comforted me and discouraged me. It was one of those uncomfortable statements that makes you think and reevaluate your heart, but yet somehow there was peace.
I know I’m going to butcher this quote but it went something like this. The general statement she said that stuck out to me was: “Its amazing how slowly God works sometimes.” Ouch. I don’t want to hear that. I want God to work quickly. I don’t naturally want to wait for the things in my heart to come to pass. I want that promise that God gave me to happen today, or even better, yesterday.
I have found that it is not very often that I stop to think about the things that are churning in the slow cooker that are a part of God’s bigger plans.
I like shortcuts. I like to push hard until I get to where I want to be and then I find another goal to reach for. I often confuse business with purpose. Most of this is an effort to turn up the heat on the things I want God to do in my life. I want to speed up the process so we can get to the “feast”. Some might say this is a control issue, and I would agree. You’ve probably heard that we live with a fast food mentality or a microwave expectation of life here in America. It’s the lie that we can sacrifice quality to suppress an appetite that is growing.
My husband loves cookies. I also enjoy cookies. I keep a pack of refrigerated cookie dough in our fridge for “emergencies” or when a sweet tooth overtakes us. In the past, I have been so excited about the dessert itself that I turned up the heat in the oven just to bake the cookies faster and, guess. what. happened. (The professional bakers out there have lost their faith in me at this point). Yep- tragedy struck. The cookies burned. Instead of pulling out a tray of delicious, warm, gooey cookies, I pulled out rock hard clumps of what used to be delicious cookie dough. And you know what the crazy part about that is? I only shaved about 3 minutes off the bake time. In the end, the shortcut wasn’t worth it. Not even ice cream could have saved those sorry excuses for dessert.
You know what’s even more important than cookies? Not a whole lot. But seriously, I think this happens way too often in our lives. We look at what we want to get and so we try to take control and force out an outcome that could never happen without trusting in God. I take on so much in my life that when it comes to God I make excuses and then I get mad when things turn out over cooked. Or in other words, not the way they were meant to.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think there is some magic formula that causes everything in our lives to work out perfectly. Sometimes God’s promises don’t always turn out the way we want them to. Sometimes God doesn’t show up how we think he should. Most the time, life is unexpected and I’ve found that most my expectations of life are based on false ideas that are fed to me from culture, family, or just simply from me losing the focus of life. In the waiting, it is critical that we don’t use that time looking only at the thing we are waiting on. During that waiting period, when we focus on God, no matter the outcome, he is the one we are leaning on. Making a habit of that is the best way to live life.
When I was planning my wedding, I had someone look at me and tell me something that rubbed me the wrong way at first, but after I thought about it, it really stuck with me and I have learned to apply it to other things in life. She said these words: “Your wedding won’t be perfect, but it will be beautiful.”
She wasn’t planning some sabotage plan for my big day. (That I know of anyway) But what she was doing was releasing me from the pressure that I had put on this day for my entire life. You know what’s crazy? My wedding WAS NOT perfect. Not everything went according to plan. Not everyone was on their best behavior. But we got married and we had so much fun. It was beautiful.
How often to we interchange these words subconsciously in our minds when we think about our life and how we want things to go? How often do we think perfection=beauty? Whether we realize it or not, we often think like this and then get disappointed when our definition of perfect isn’t met and we miss the beauty of what really happened.
I could sit here and quote a bunch of scriptures on waiting on God. And those would be great. But here’s where I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. God moving slow doesn’t mean he isn’t moving. Another thing- God moving slowly doesn’t mean that we don’t move either. It simply means that we don’t try to control a timeline by doing more all the time.
I’ve found that prayer is the best way for me to put this into perspective in my life. Feel free to use this prayer below if you struggle with things like this like I do:
God, you are good. I know you have good things for me. Thank you for the good you have done. Help me to not be so focused on what I want that I miss what I have. Open my eyes to see what you are doing now in the waiting. Help me recognize you when you are working. Help me trust you and look to you more. Amen.
The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. [Lamentations 3:25]
