The Waiting Game

This is poignant. Very. When it comes to the subject of waiting, I feel like an expert on the subject right now. I am waiting on my career to get going, I am waiting on our home, I am waiting on our child to be born, I am waiting on a new job for my husband... these are biggies. And no, I don't always ace the tests on not worrying and being productive and patient during this time. There are days of strong spiritual attack, and days that I simply falter and do not live as fully out of His word as I did the day before. But the gorgeous thing about being in "life limbo" is that God reveals himself, powerfully, to you during these days. Not everything you ask for happens. As long as you are watching for Him, and expecting His presence in a powerful way, the music is still being made; the magic and the majesty still happens. A flower does not simply explode in to a blooming fruit- there are stages, and each one is necessary. Even the flower has to wait.

The time of waiting, in my experience (and it has certainly been no different here) is when God really unfolds some lessons for you. Some of these lessons are encouraging and sweet, while others have a sharp twinge and an embrace- but all of them are life changing. He even plays with you a little, dangling things you need or want in front of you and making you understand how very tiny and small you are... but also, how loved and cherished you are. I know I am loved! As busy as God is, He is still working miracles in my every day life- my pregnancy, even being able to afford our next home- do I have to wait on them still? Yes. But they are HAPPENING. So much of the time, we begin to feel as if waiting equals failure, as if it is doomed, since it is not all flying together and happening overnight. No, not everything you try for succeeds, but if God's will is in it, it's going to happen.

This is the time of our lives we humans hate- but God adores it. This is the time He bends us, shapes us and weaves us in to precisely what He wants us to be.

The reason waiting is an unsure and unsteady time for us is because we dislike being in the unknown. (Cause we know a great deal about what, exactly? Silly peoples.) We love being in the loop, being able to plan and being able to compensate for things. We are not fans of rolling with the punches- even if we become accustomed to it. If we are to follow God completely and totally, with all of our heart and mind, than this is the time we have to pay special attention to. If God has not given something, then the reason is simply because it is not in His time. You're not ready. Some unforseen thing is standing in the way. Someone else involved isn't ready...the periods of waiting in our life must be directed in such a way that we begin to understand that His timing is far more important than our timing. What waiting teaches us is that our wants and wishes are not as important as His overall plan, and they simply never will be. The period of waiting, when we pay attention the lessons placed before us, is when God gets nitty- gritty and develops our character and our story line and we must patiently and productively wait, as not to lose sight of the end goal. We are but one character in a novel filled with thousands of others, and if we do not act accordingly, our place in the story diminishes. We become one of those lame characters that makes poor decisions and gets killed off early. And who wants to be that guy? I want to see how it ends.

If you know how to wait well, then you also know how to be blessed well, all the while maintaining your spirit of humility. Waiting well means being selfless, non obsessive, relaxed- sure of your faith in Him... it is this beautiful area between moving on and hanging on where magic happens in your soul. You continue to pray for what you are waiting for, but you feel no anxiety for it- you feel no urgency, no terror- because it is in this time that God really comes through. This is when he works all the "little" miracles that boost your faith and bring joy to your heart. Look for them, I promise you He is doing them- everyday! It is during the periods of waiting that you realize God really does have your back, that He really does keep his promises and all of His word is solid ground to stand on. Because you are in this spirit, you do well by your blessing when the time finally comes. Instead of receiving what you asked for and thinking, "it's about time" you say, "Lord, thank you- show me how to use this wisely. What is your will in this, what do you want me to do with it, for you?"

You are better for the waiting- always. Rejoice in the time between what you need and what you want, between the questions and the answers that you are seeking. They are coming, they are being sent and being explained, slowly, day by day. Where the glory is, is in His timing and His story. No amount if instant gratification is better than where He can take you.

The First of a Few

I believe that one of the essential keys to happiness and forward progression in your personal and spiritual life, is to learn how to enjoy every single bit of it. Not easy. Also, not a common way to think- and it is understandably uncommon. It is not in human nature to casually walk in to semi (or not so semi) uncomfortable or dangerous situations and not feel the urge to run, escape or abandon the mission entirely. The only truly "unpleasant" situations I can think of that a human being even entertains the idea of marching in to are childbirth and war.... but it is a wise man who enjoys every stage of life, even waiting.

As you get older, you either get better at this theory on life, or you move further from it. Surely, a lot of the propulsion or magnetism towards the idea depends on how you were taught, but not all of the responsibility of your older years falls on your younger ones. I am living proof of this. (Even if you didn't get it from your parent, you can ALWAYS get it from God- who parented you first.) We all get to make choices, and anyone, if they want to, can change. Moving towards this spirit of patient attentiveness to everything, and quiet reverie, pleases God tremendously- as He has taught this lesson to many men and women throughout history and in our biblical text. God loves a good "then and now" story. He loves to take a person who says, "No, I am always going to be miserable, there cannot possibly be anything for me. Get away, I don't need you"- and then make them in to a fully content, whole, beautiful individual, who changes his day and his time. Think of the Moses, Jobe; the disciples. Not terribly "gifted" (by societies standards), no one special, average- even dense. Peter, who was scared in his mortal skin at the time of Christ's crucifixion, became, with time, brave and mighty in God's light. The man, who at his time of execution DEMANDED to be crucified upside down (um, ow. Hardcore, power to you.) as he felt he did not deserve even the same manner of death as Jesus, is the same who ran and denied years earlier. What changed inside of Peter, and so many others, is that God taught Him, day by day, and moved Peter toward a spirit of understanding. Every stage of life has a specific purpose, and it is designed to help you conquer the next. When we think of the hard times in our life this way, as awesome lessons God is teaching us- to turn us in to amazing creatures we never thought we could be, how can we not begin to enjoy even the harshest of things? If we love and trust Him, then we know that His intentions for us are perfect, and no amount of suffering can last forever.

More on the importance of waiting later. For now, I am going to enjoy this stage of my day, and see what God has to say to me. I hope you do the same. :)

Late night thought...

One of the hardest things for me to do, personally, in my walk of faith, is to consistently see myself the way God sees me. I have found (I'm not sure if this is true for most women) that pregnancy has helped that tremendously- and for this, I am grateful. I am seeing myself much more positively and peacefully inside and outside. I love my mind. I love my heart. I love my body- and my life. This is coming from the little girl who just about willed herself to death when she was ten, because she hated herself that deeply. It is God's Grace that has saved me- His wisdom and His love have taught me, have cleaned me, and have fed me.

What I mean by "how God sees me", is not just how I appear on the outside, but how I appear and how I operate on the inside. It's easy to forget how deeply, totally and unabashedly loved you are when you are the one still carrying your sin around. We are our own worst enemies, and the worst at forgiving- especially ourselves. I feel like, if God and I met up for coffee, He would look at me the same way He did on the day I was born. I would think, "Oh, I bet you're thinking about the time I did this, or this time I said that, that hurt you..." but the reality is, when we ask God for forgiveness, it is done. You would ask him in the next moment, "So, are we cool about that?" and he would say, "About what?" It's as if it never happened- because God's will to love us, and His promise to continue to is that great. It overcomes sin- it overcomes everything. We do more than cheat ourselves when we replace the sin God has just removed by holding grudges against ourselves. We look directly in the face of God and say, "you're not right about me." Trust me- He is.

We routinely see ourselves as that kid that lied to their parents about the twenty dollars suddenly missing from the car, or the woman who cheated on her husband, who acted in anger against her children, who did this, who did that- who killed a man, who ran away from life, blah, blah, blah. But guess what- it doesn't matter what you've done wrong. We're all sinners! We're all just as bad as the next. What matters- is what you've done right, and why you did it. Asking for forgiveness, and working in a spirit of self correction, reflection and growth are certainly huge among these things you can do well by, and God so loves all of that. (Especially when He's the center of it!) Many of the greatest, world changing, peace making people had substantial faults and big struggles- they were the same. It was not what they did wrong- but what they did right that changed us. And changed them.

I am infinitely better at loving myself, appreciating myself and letting go of the things I have done- but there is more room to be made in my heart for that. There always will be. I wont fully understand until I meet Him again, but I am going to come as close I can before that time. God helps me- by blessing me in the healthy areas of my life, and helping, like a sweet Father, to steer me away from those things that hurt me, that make me lose the essence of myself. (Thankyou, Jesus.) When I begin to feel down on myself, or that I am inadequate, or insufficient, I recall the way I feel when I am trying to show someone else how beautiful, how talented, and how smart they are- and they just aren't getting it. The feeling I have when I am heartbroken by how they do not see their own beauty, their own prowess, their own destiny and their own strength; when I am standing before them and shaking my head with a smile that means, "you don't have a clue." (You'll see it one day, I always think- and I pray for it.) It's in those moments that I realize how God must feel with me sometimes. Even more intensely. I believe I am right about these people, those that I sit down with and explain their awesomeness, and when I feel God's sweet opinion of me, I have to trust that He must be right and move in it. If I can be right about someone I have been lucky enough to meet and discover on this Earth, God must be right too- seeing as He created me and knows me better than anyone, and- oh yeah- He's FAR more in tune with this sort of thing than I am. Part of how He knows us better is that He knows us only in truth, while we have to learn how to find the reality in a world of deception.

Does this mean we should walk around "acting perfect"? No. Doesn't change anything about the need to be humble- in fact, I think it breeds humility. When I see myself the way God sees me, it magnifies His grace and His incredible nature- and I am so aware of how I am no one, and yet, to Him, I am everything. It's a wonderful chain reaction. All at once, I get to know myself, and my Father even better- and I begin to change and stride forward. My faith is given good soil in which to grow. With God, there is no backwards momentum. "Backwards" was a word invented on Earth in order to keep ourselves stuck, depressed, alienated and discouraged so that we, perhaps, would never understand the concept of how God works- but of course, we invented it with the best intentions. Luckily, the Kingdom only works in forwards, so when you step on that train, the old life burns away. In order to know who you really are, you have to have a date with God and asks Him what He sees. Even if there is great, hard work to be done in you, you will still be His child. You will still be the light in His eyes. WE are His will! (How cool is that?) We are heirs, and yet peasants- blessed beyond anything on Earth, and asked to lead incredible lives. Read the story of your life, objectively, without any thought of how you have sinned, or of how you feel about yourself currently. Look at all you have done- and how Christ has been with you through every step of the journey-- actively love every piece of it, hang on every turn; your successes and your falls. This is your piece of God's story. This is your life. Be yourself, forgive yourself, and LOVE yourself. In other words, be blessed.