Ok, I’ll admit, I’m not a fan of waiting. Waiting in line, waiting for a response, waiting for someone. It feels like a lot of our time is spent waiting! Just as it is in this life, so it is with God in our spiritual life. Sometimes our answers to prayer don’t happen overnight, in fact sometimes they take days, weeks or even months. It can get hard in life when we pray and pray and pray and God doesn’t answer us. Sometimes we wonder, “Is He listening? Is He still there?” Well I have good news, even though waiting isn’t the coolest thing ever, God uses it just as He uses everything else in our life. I feel that when we are waiting, we go through three different stages. I want you to think of something that you’re waiting on right now. Maybe it’s the prayer of good grades, or a prayer for your friend who isn’t doing too well, or maybe it’s for the health of a loved one. Or maybe it’s something that is deeply personal to you that you’re struggling with. Whatever it may be, I want you to think of it before we move on. Here are the three stages that we experience when we are waiting.
1. Longing: So whatever we’re waiting for, we start off by longing for it. What do I mean by longing? Let’s use the example that I got hurt and want to get better and so I pray to God that I would get better quickly. First, in order to even bring that request to God, I would have to long or deeply want, healing to wherever I hurt myself. Sometimes this stage of waiting is the worst because you want whatever you’re waiting for so bad. Sometimes it’s all you can think about and you may even get a pit in your stomach because you just want it to happen! This prompts us to turn to God in prayer, which God is super happy about. When bringing our requests to God, we want to bring them to God with thanksgiving and praise, and then let Him know what our request is (Philippians 4:6).
2. Patience: Oh, did I say the longing stage was the hardest? Well, I think it’s arguable that this next stage of waiting, which is the “patience” part of it, can be pretty hard too. I say that because this is the part where most of the waiting takes place. Once we let God know our requests, then we have to wait for Him to answer. Sometimes the answer is “yes” other times the answer is “no” and sometimes it’s “wait”. The important thing to remember is that God is listening. He will hear your request when you truly come before Him and pray from your heart and you seek Him. Jeremiah 29:12-14 says, “’Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you. You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord.” God will hear you when you pray. Back to my injury example. I may pray for healing, and God may heal me quickly, slowly, or prolong the injury for some reason. This then, leads into my next point.
3. Beauty: This is so, so important! Now, unarguably, this is the best part of waiting. Wait…you mean there’s a good part of waiting? Yes, I sure do! In fact, a lot of times this is the exact reason we’re waiting, yet we tend to miss it because we’re too busy complaining about waiting! The last stage of waiting is what I like to call “beauty.” In the waiting, we have to be so careful to not get so busy waiting and anticipating for our answer that we miss what God is doing in the waiting. A lot of times, God has us wait for a season because He is doing things! Things like working on us. A lot of times while we wait, God is refining our character and our trust in Him. Sometimes He is working on things in our life that we cannot see. We always have to remember that God is not limited to space and time like we are. His hand is constantly working on our behalf, whether it looks like it or not. We have to have faith that God can and will keep His promises. A lot of times we think that waiting is wasting time, but that’s never so with our God. He doesn’t waste anything. God is working everything out for His purposes for your life, and in some cases, there isn’t a better instance to work things out perfectly for you and your life then you have to wait! Isaiah 61:3 assures us that God will gives us beauty for ashes.
Whether or not the answer to our prayers is “yes” “no” or “wait”, it’s important that while we are waiting on God, we don’t complain and we look around at what God is trying to do or get us to see in our lives. Some of the most beautiful things that God does in our lives comes out of our waiting. We must seek God in our waiting so that He can reveal His plan and purposes for everything. God sees the big picture even when we don’t, it’s just important to trust Him, even in the waiting.
As always, thanks for reading and glory to God! Please also note that I am back on twitter. Please feel free to connect with me there- @stephaniejtay or on Facebook, or via that Contact Me page on this website. I hope you all have a great New Year in 2015 and that you will grow abundantly in the Lord! God bless.
For Him,
Stephanie