Have you ever felt deep in your bones that God has a plan “exceedingly abundantly above all that [you] ask or think”? Do you ever “become weary in doing good”? Perhaps you have heard something specific from God. He’s awakened you to your passions and talents; he’s given you a vision for how you can run fast and free in your lane, but for whatever reason, it’s not happening. Doors are not opening, and so you grow impatient.
The fires of passion and zeal burn quickly, but start to fade when we don’t see evidence of God’s provision and blessing immediately. When things don’t happen as we expect – when God doesn’t act the way we think he will – we began to question and doubt everything.
Did we hear correctly?
Did we get it wrong?
We expect immediate parting of the seas, removal of obstacles, and opening of doors, yet Scripture shows us that God often calls his children to periods of waiting. Consider David and how he was anointed king of Israel, only to be sent back to tend his family’s sheep. God clearly revealed that he chose David to be king, yet the pregnancy of his anointing lasted years. As David waited, the Lord made him ready. Then in due season, when the giant Goliath threatened the entire nation, God told David, It’s time. The Lord prepared David to stand against and defeat his enemies. The waiting strengthened David to lead in that moment. That’s how many promises of the Bible are laid out.
There is a revealing, followed by a period of waiting.
The writer of Hebrews tells the church, “Do not cast away your confidence, [church], which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.” (Hebrews 10:35-36)
The life of the believer hangs in the balance between the now and the not yet. We know the hope – that the kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven – but we live in the waiting. In the same way, we can know the call of God on our lives and feel anxious to get to it, but sometimes God calls us to wait as he refines us, as he shows himself to be our redeemer, rescuer, and healer. We must confess that his timing is best, and trust and declare that the waiting will bring us into a place of readiness.
Perhaps you are waiting in hope that a broken relationship will be repaired. Maybe you are waiting for the return of a loved one with whom you’ve lost touch. Perhaps you’ve held off on divorce, hoping for the restoration of your marriage. Maybe you’re waiting for physical healing.
You straddle promise and doubt, feebly holding on to the hope of promise. Keep holding on. You may not know the outcome, but you can rest in the tension of the waiting. It’s in the tension that the music is made. Remember the song of the psalmist, “How long, Lord?”
When will the supernatural meet the natural?
When will you show up in all your glory and swoop the brokenhearted into your palm? When will you fly by and tuck us in your mighty wings? We sit on the precipice of promise, and the posture of waiting requires ultimate surrender of the human will. No matter how much we want to change things or rush them, we cannot. It is out of our hands.
Here, in the waiting, God gently responds:
I am working on your behalf even now.
In the tension I hold you.
In the waiting, I walk with you.
In the not-yet, I carry you.
Rest here, in green pastures, by streams of living water.
In this place of utter safety and comfort.
Let me shelter you with the wing of my mighty hand.
Let me flood you with complete safety.
I see you and I will cover you. I will hold you fast.
There will come a moment in your waiting when God says, “It’s time.” There is a season for each of us, where we will reap if we do not faint. He shows us the way. We need grace and wisdom to sit in the places prepared for us, because we’ve been given an anointing to be revealed in time. God has something in store for you and only you. Waiting is a critical part of your anointing. It prepares you, strengthens you, equips and trains you to step up when the moment comes.
Watch Rebekah Lyons this Thursday on LIFE TODAY. This is an excerpt from You Are Free: Be Who You Already Are by Rebekah Lyons. Copyright ©2017 by Rebekah Lyons. Published by Zondervan. Used by permission.
