Wait on Him

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” -Psalm 27:14

“… But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” -Isaiah 40:31

”The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.” -Lamentations 3:25

”But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” -Romans 8:25

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices.” -Psalm 37:7

”For evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.” -Psalm 37:9

“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I hope, my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchman for the morning.” -Psalm 130:5-6

I have a challenge for you. I challenge you to find one verse or one story in scripture that shows that waiting on the Lord is a waste of time. Go on, I dare you to find a verse that doesn’t have something good attached to it with waiting on the Lord. I guarantee you can’t.

Well this is it, ladies and gentlemen! This is the first official blog, of possibly a couple, about Waiting on the Lord. I know we’ve touched on it. A few weeks ago in, Just Enough, we started the conversation on waiting. We talked about being in a desert season and how the Lord wants to give us just enough so He can give us more of Himself. Then two weeks ago, in Broken Alabaster, I shared a little bit more of my waiting season. Finally, last week, I shared a blog I wrote a while ago about praising, While We Wait. (It’s probably best to read those first, if you haven’t already, before you read this one.)

I have also mentioned how I’ve had to sit this one on the back burner, because I wasn’t ready to write about it. If I’m being super honest, I still don’t think I’m ready, but I couldn’t shake it with the Lord… it was time. The truth is, the main reason, I haven’t felt ready is because I’m still very much in it. Therefore, I feel I don’t have as much testimony to back up what I would like to share. But we trust the Lord, yea? And if He says it’s time, then I guess, I’m gonna share what I have.

There is a really massive lie the enemy loves to tell us when we are in a waiting season. It’s subtle, almost undetected. It weaves its way in and out of conversations, buries itself deep in our hearts, and with the help of culture, comments and expectations, it builds a wall so high it isn’t allowed to see the light of day. Why? Because that would expose it.

What is this lie about waiting on the Lord?

The lie is that in waiting, we are waiting to be loved by God.

Think about it. When we are waiting on Him for something—a spouse, a baby, a job, an answer, a restoration, a person we’ve been praying for for years to come to Him, a healing, a deliverance, an understanding, fill in the blank— when we are waiting on Him, it feels as though we are waiting for Him to love us with the outcome, the answer, the “XYZ” we are waiting for. As if somehow getting this thing proves His love for us. And if we have this thought, then the opposite thought has to be true as well…if He doesn’t give me this thing, then He must not love me. He must not hear me. He must not care. He must not see the pain I’m in, because why would a good, loving Father, see His children in pain and do nothing to fix it? Why would a Creator God who can speak things into existence and created us not to be alone, not see how lonely I am and speak a husband into my life?

And the lie grows from this place…I must not be worthy. There must be something I can’t get right. Look at the friend who just got married, or that girl who easily got pregnant after trying one time, she must have figured something out for the Lord to do that for her. She must have done something right or good. I must be doing something wrong. The Lord must be pleased with her and displeased with me. That guy must be walking so close with the Lord to get that healing. He/She must be God’s favorite. They must have figured out how to be content with just God, because people always say that when you get to “that” place… He moves.

I believed this lie for a very long time. It was almost easier to believe this way, than it was to believe any other way. Sometimes, I still find myself believing it. But when I fall for it, when I come into agreement with it, it has only led me to be very, deeply, gut-wrenchingly, hopelessly disappointed with the Lord. And trust me when I say, this makes it all much worse. It becomes this vicious cycle that is extremely hard to get out of, and it wears you out so much so, you feel like you can’t keep going. Because suddenly, even deeper lies begin to surface. The lies we see in Genesis: God is with-holding from me. God must not be who He says He is. God must not be good.

Therefore, a lot of us, try to take matters into our own hands. We say, “God isn’t speaking or moving, so He must just want me to do something and figure it out.” We ask one time, and when we don’t get an immediate answer, we think “Well, God can fix it if I make a mistake. I’m just gonna do what I want.” But when we do this, we forfeit so much the Lord wants to give us— The fruit of patience that the Holy Spirit wants to grow in us. The peace that comes with trust that the Lord wants us to rest in. The healing that the Father wants to do, in order that you can fully be who He created you to be in the next season. The wholeness that He wants to bring in order for you to carry all you need to carry in future chapters. The endurance, the steadfastness, the character, the real hope.

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith, produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” -James 1:2-4

”Therefore, Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame; because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” -Romans 5:1-5

When we choose not to wait on Him, we forfeit the chance to truly know His heart, His face, His love, and intimacy with Him that we could never know otherwise. Not to mention, we forfeit the chance to get to see Him work miracles, create streams in deserts, and make ways where there are no ways.

In other words, we miss Him.

We miss Him getting the chance to be Himself and to love us how He has always desired to love us.

A couple years ago, the Lord began to teach me some things about waiting on Him with a friendship I have. I really loved this friend and I really valued our friendship. However, there were some things within our friendship that were deeply hurting me. I had prayed about it for many years and the Lord never seemed to give an answer to it all. I’d fasted, I’d prayed certain scriptures, mustered up all the faith I could, gave God my most honest prayers, listened to podcasts, sermons, testimonies, sought advice from godly friends and family and still I felt no answer. From my perspective, there were only two ways this could go and I felt stuck. Things were either going to change in a certain way between us, or we were going to go our separate ways.

One Sunday morning, a pastor shared this story. “A man owned a business. He was exhausted at trying to keep it afloat. One night before bed, he prayed, ‘Lord, I’m giving you my business. You can either fix it and make it thrive, or you can burn it down. It’s yours now, so it’s up to you.’ Early the next morning, the man got a call that his business was on fire. He slowly got up, got in his truck and drove that way. He finally got there and someone asked him why he wasn’t more upset. He told them it wasn’t his business anymore, it was the Lord’s and He could do with it what He wanted.”

I knew the Lord was speaking this to me about this friendship.

To surrender it, let go, give it to God and wait on Him. If He wanted to fix it, He could, but if He wanted to let it burn to the ground, I had to be ok with that as well.

This wasn’t easy. It even messed with my theology. I thought we were supposed to talk things out and confront issues. I thought we were supposed to seek out restoration with people. My friend and I tried to talk it out and it didn’t work. It actually made things worse. Finally, I told my friend that we needed to just wait on the Lord in it. But, I honestly didn’t fully understand what that meant. I thought it was about figuring out how to say what needed to be said. I thought it was about praying certain prayers and asking the Lord for certain things. But no, it was actually quite quiet. The Lord didn’t really say much about it actually. But He did listen to me talk about it… a lot. I kept waiting for Him to tell me how to fix it but He didn’t. Instead, He would talk to me about His perspective and helped me walk through healing and forgiveness.

Nine months later, I was sitting in my quiet time and He spoke. He told me exactly who this friend was to be in my life and in my heart. I asked the Lord what I was supposed to do with this information and He said nothing. An hour later, I was on my way to a coffee shop to meet with someone. While I was on my way… getting there a little early to do some work… the person I was meeting sent a text saying they may or may not make it, but they would let me know. Suddenly, I wondered if the Lord was setting me up. I get to the coffee shop and I see my friend the Lord had spoken to me about that morning. The person I was meeting sent a text and said they weren’t coming and I immediately felt the peace and confidence from the Lord that this was my moment. I decided to take a chance and I sat down and just ask how it was going. We talked and caught up for about an hour, just like we had done so many times before. Before we left, we made plans to meet up and really talk about our friendship. This was the timing of the Lord. We were able to be honest with each other, confessing and establishing where the friendship needed to land and what it needed to be, based on what the Lord had said. The Lord had done so much work in both of us over the nine months that we were able to heal, and He was able to restore us to be what He wanted us to be. All because we surrendered and we waited on Him.

It’s been a little over a year now since the Lord did what He did and let me tell you, He made that friendship into something I didn’t think was possible. Turns out, the two options I thought I had, weren’t the only two. Those were just the two I could see.

I think God always has His own options and they are usually ones we can’t see until He reveals them.

So what do we do? How do we deal? How do we cope and survive the tension of waiting on the Lord?

I think we have to surrender… to let go. Letting go doesn’t mean giving up or losing faith. It doesn’t mean taking things into our own hands or praying the right kind of prayers. I think it’s “the surrender of the figure out” and trusting His story instead. I think it’s letting go of our perspective and the two options we are trying so hard to hold on to, and instead believing in the God who has unlimited options of His own. I think we have to embrace the quiet, the stillness, the uncomfortable tension and limbo between the problem and the solution and just let the Lord be Himself. What if waiting on the Lord looked like just that—waiting before Him each morning, giving Him our most honest prayers and having the faith to simply believe that He hears every single one of them. Choosing to believe what His Word says and who it declares Him to be. Choosing to believe that He does love me more than I can imagine, that He does work everything together for my good and His glory. Choosing to believe that He is working and moving, even if I can’t see it, even if it’s slow. His ways and timing are perfect and He makes everything beautiful in its time. Choosing to trust that He isn’t withholding anything from me and resting in the fact that He gives me all I need when I need it. I’m not an orphan that has to beg. I’m His Daughter that moves His heart, just because I’m His.

I love the verse that says,

“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever, Amen.” -Ephesians 3:20

I love how it says “who is able”. The promise here seems to carry a small ultimatum. Nothing crazy. Nothing condemning. Nothing we need to figure out. But rather it communicates, we just have to let Him.

Your encouragement for the week:

Maybe you need to let Him. Maybe you need to surrender and let go of how you think all this should go. Maybe He is inviting you into the tension of the quiet and stillness so He can heal some things in you. Maybe you need to write some scriptures on your mirror to remind you that waiting on the Lord isn’t a waste of time and there are only good things attached in doing so. Maybe you need to pray the prayer of the business man, “make it thrive or burn it down, it’s Yours”. Maybe you need repent and come out of agreement from the lies you’ve been believing about waiting. Maybe you need to sit and allow the Holy Spirit to resolve in your heart how much the Lord loves you and how He is good and isn’t withholding anything from you. Maybe you need to surrender the need to figure it all out and the need to have an immediate answer. Or maybe you just need to stop doing all you’re trying to do to make it all make sense. Maybe you need to let Him be Himself in your life and simply Wait on Him.