Thousands of words have been written on patience. We all go through times in our lives where we are waiting on the Lord lead us into a new season – to find a husband or wife, to have a baby, to move to a new place, to start a new career.
In my perfect world, I would be able to wait peacefully, content to move forward in the Lord’s timing. There have been seasons of my life that I have found myself almost blissful in waiting but there have also been times in my life when I can’t hold still, physically or spiritually, and I am aching for the next step to be here already.
I’m not going to pretend I have it all figured out because I don’t. I’ve been refined in patience many times before and yet here I am still reading, praying and journaling my way through another season. The precipice of change is a challenging place to be. We all handle it differently. For some, it brings unending joy and excitement. For others, anxiety, and fear.
[easy-tweet tweet=”Patience is a virtue meant to be strengthened and built up with time and practice” user=”@JaymeHull” hashtags=”#patience”]. As scary as waiting on the Lord can be, it is scarier for me to imagine an unlimited swiftness in life but no God holding my eternity in His hands.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
Proverbs 3:5-6
For me, the pain of impatience stems mostly from imagining that I know best. I find myself so caught up in my plans, in my hopes, in my timing that I lose sight of the possibility that my plans may not be His plans.
“Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; He will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!”
Isaiah 30:18
In my season of waiting, I am learning to lean into God and all of His promises. I bear down and focus even more closely on the things that He has already done, the promises He has already fulfilled. I venture to ask if my ideas for a next step are in His will. I reflect on previous seasons of waiting and remember that He has always been and will always be good and He loves me more than I can possibly fathom.
Regardless of how the waiting turns out, I know that God is faithful and His plan supersedes any that I can imagine for myself.
Here’s to waiting on the Lord…
