Waiting

Our culture does not raise us in a way where waiting is something that we are okay with. We often want things now, we want them when we want them. A healthy relationship with God is often much different than the kind of relationship that we are raised to have with other people. God, to our benefit, has a great amount of patience. We are made to be in His image. This means that we should be patient like Him.

As we read through the Bible there are very, very many examples of people like us. I wrote an earlier post about our need to do what we are commissioned to do. We are here to go and make disciples. Even when doing this task of making disciples, we want to do things our way. Our understanding of time is much different than that of God's.

To glorify God we must be doing what God wants us to do. Just because a task is similar to what God has asked others to do, does not mean that by doing a task we are glorifying God. This means that sometimes we have to stay places where we are not comfortable. Sometimes we have to go places where we are not comfortable. This puts us in a very difficult situation based upon what our culture has taught us.

Jesus did not go into His ministry until He was 30 years old. Imagine if you, as God, came to this earth in human form, sacrifice your life as God, and live in this sinful world of man. For 30 years Jesus essentially was willing to have his hands tied behind his back. Jesus could have done so many things in so many situations yet He held off until the timing of the Father had come.

Often times we want God to move on things, to change our lives, to essentially do what our will is and not His. We often want this because we are in situations that we do not want to be in either for comfort or because we feel we can do better in another situation. This is where our faith comes in. We are to know and trust that God is in control. God is in control of the past the present and the future. He has always been and will always be. We have to trust that God does indeed know more than we do.

Are you doing this? I know I have struggled often with this. I think I have grand ideas which of course my wife dissolves correctly. I thank God for that correction because her patience and/or lack of desire for change has kept me from fulfilling my will while going against God's will. When the right time has come, which I believe we are close to having that, God will have us both ready and focused at the same time. Do you have anybody to help keep you focused? Do you have anybody that can help discern whether ideas are your will or God's? I believe you should find some way to do this. If you don't have someone, then seek the guidance of a spiritual leader or your pastor or somebody else you know that can discern and apply things that you are understanding in different ways.