Motivation Monday – What to Do When You're Tired Of Waiting
“This kind of waiting is intentional. You don’t want to get where you need to go too fast, because it’s in the waiting that the race is won. ”
I fear there are two people inside my soul, each vying for its truth. One that radiates positivity and knows that all will be well and God is still on the throne. The other person, the nemesis, is negative, cynical, critical, not believing that in due time, there will be a new normal beyond the current happenings.
AND SO I WRESTLE. AND I WAIT.
How about you? Are you wrestling? Are you waiting? Or have pieces of your soul started to let despair creep in, while you project a fake smile on the outside?
What’s happening while you are waiting? God is at work. Do you believe it?
In terms of waiting, I am not sure any woman that ever lived had to wait as long as Sarah to have a child. Ninety-three years? That is a long wait! How much despair could have grown in her soul over all that time? We are having a hard time waiting eighteen months! Waiting is hard.
But what was God doing while Sarah was waiting for the child promised to her and Abraham? Just watching to see how things would turn out? Wondering how they would figure out how to do it at their ripe age?
No, God was at work. Every minute, every hour. And He is at work every minute, every hour in your situation.
GOD WORKED IN SARAH’S SITUATION, BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER HER WAITING TIME.
AND HE IS WORKING IN YOURS.
• He was redeeming the irreversible. He protected Hagar, wrongly manipulated by Sarah to conceive a child with Abraham. God delivers on the lineage He promised through Isaac—the lineage through which Christ would come.
• He was reuniting the irreconcilable. Abraham and Sarah united and she conceived. They had to work through a lot of mistrust and high conflict marriage conversations but God brought them together.
• He was restoring the irreplaceable. God provided a lamb as a sacrifice for Isaac when Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his promised son on the altar.
God wants us to experience the power of waiting. Sue Monk Kidd said, “Waiting is the yeasting of the human soul.” Waiting is like making bread. Before you can taste its soft, chewy goodness, you have to mix it, knead it, and let it rise. It has to sit before it can be put into the warmth of the oven. The yeast needs to do its work.
Sometimes we think waiting is a noun—a thing, a static, unmoving burden. It sits on us heavily. We wait, we wait some more, with fear and dread that what we’re waiting for is never going to happen because we’ve waited so long and it still hasn’t happened. Then we lose hope and trust that anything will ever change.
The truth is that waiting is a verb—an active, exciting verb, full of energy, hope, and longing.
There are two parts to it.
Part one is bridling back—to hold on to the reins; if you’re racing too fast to get to the finish line, you’ll run out of steam. Good jockeys know this when racing horses; they pace themselves. They have to bridle back the reins so they can make the sprint near the finish line.
This kind of waiting is intentional. You don’t want to get where you need to go too fast, because it’s in the waiting that the race is won.
Part two of waiting is to leaning forward—leaning into the future and anticipating that something amazing is going to happen. It means to be eagerly impatient, expectant, to imagine and hope for, to look ahead for, to see coming, to grasp whatever is around the turn.
Why does God wait so long for His promises and purposes to be fulfilled?
IN THE WAITING, GOD IS BOTH BRIDLING BACK AND LEANING FORWARD.
He knows we shouldn’t speed up the process because we’ll run out of energy for the final sprint. At the same time, He’s teaching us to lean forward in anticipation that we’ll cross that finish line and finish well.
Would you trust that on God’s watch, all will keep moving as it should? Despite the despair, the evil, the miscommunication, the unsettling, God is still on the watch. Next time you ask, “what are you waiting for, God?”, remember that God is:
Redeeming the irreversible
Reuniting the irreconcilable
Restoring the irreplaceable.
He knows the beginning, middle and the end of every season of your life, and will carry you into you tomorrow, when you have given up strength to get there yourself. But never give up hope. Keep waiting. Bridle back and lean in. Watch for it. Wait for it. It’s coming.
I believe in you!
Cathie