Wait patiently for the Lord.
Be brave and courageous.
Yes, wait patiently for the Lord. Psalm 27:14 (NLT)
Ever notice that when you follow God there is a lot of waiting. We wait for an answer to prayer. We wait for guidance. We wait while we try to figure out what God wants.
Waiting is not my strongest trait. As a matter of fact, I think I am pretty terrible at it. On a pretty regular basis I complain to God (and my friends) about the waiting. I feel that I have been waiting on God for a couple years now.
What am I waiting for? I am waiting on some idea I have in my mind about how things are supposed to look. And they don’t look like that. Where did I get that idea? Good question. Somewhere in my head I formed this idea about what life is supposed to look like. It doesn’t so I am expecting God to change it.
Maybe that’s where the next line in today’s text comes in. Be brave and courageous. Sometimes we feel that waiting is a bad thing. But in all honesty, it takes courage. When you wait, you acknowledge that you are not going to “fix” it by yourself. In this case, I am waiting on God to step in. I am surrendering the outcome to him not knowing his next move.
Surrendering is hard. It requires courage to trust God and let him run the show.
There is one word in this text that I am still working on; patiently. I am learning to wait. God’s been telling me to wait for a while now. While I wait, I am learning to trust. But the patiently part still eludes me on a pretty regular basis.
Good thing God has the “patiently” part down! He is very patiently waiting for me to learn this lesson.