What Are You Waiting For?

When I was younger, I waited impatiently to be old enough. To be old enough to get my ears pierced, go out with friends on my own, drive myself wherever I needed to go, eat whatever dessert I wanted, get married, have kids. Often, instead of living in the moment and being grateful for what I had, I was looking for the next (better) thing. As I got older, there were things I wanted so badly I couldn’t wait. So I made a way to have them.
Over the past few years, my health took a downward turn. Since I’d been healthy my whole life, exercising, eating well, working hard, this felt really difficult. Too hard to handle. It was something I couldn’t control, no matter what I tried. As I waited and prayed to be well I found impatience with God grew. Though I read that I should “consider it all joy when [I] encounter various trials...so that [I] may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:2-4), it was so hard to find joy. My trust became less as I worked harder to control my life. In spite of how hard I worked to get healthy again on my own, no matter how many doctors I went to see or medications I tried, things continued to worsen. It wasn’t until I came to a place of desperation and had no other options to try that things began to turn around for me as I found unconventional answers. I can only attribute this to God leading me to them. I’m so thankful today that I can say many of my symptoms are controlled and no longer completely define my life! I learned through that time that while I was waiting on God, he was waiting for me. Waiting for me to trust Him. To give Him back the control. To be grateful in everything. To find joy in suffering.

Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, Therefore the Lord will wait, that He may be gracious to you; and therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. - Isaiah 30:18

Bob Sorge, pastor and author of Secrets of the Secret Place, writes of this passage “When it says, “The Lord will wait,” it doesn’t mean that God is waiting for you to do something; it means that God is strategically delaying His miraculous visitation because He has greater things in store for you then you’ve even asked for. But to give you the fullness of what he has planned for your life, He will use the season of waiting to prepare you as a vessel, and also prepare circumstances around your life so that you will be able to step forward into the proper sphere when His release comes to you. He's waiting so that He can crown you with an even greater blessing.” (p. 130) I used to think that God gives us good things we’ve been waiting and praying for when we least expect it. Now I understand that we least expect it because it comes when we’ve finally given up trying to control it and so we don’t think it will happen. God gives us good things we’ve been waiting and praying for when we’ve given him back control. When we’re in the place of desperation, that’s when our Good Father steps in and gives us gifts that bring great joy. What you’re waiting for might not happen in your time or according to your plan, but God will always mean it for your good and His glory.

Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord!

- Psalm 27:14