Waiting

So much of life is about waiting!  Waiting for the right partner, right home, right job, right doctor, right church, right thing to say or do.  One of the definitions of waiting is to remain in readiness for some purpose, to stay where you are.

For me, waiting is not an easy scenario!  My daughter-in-law refers to me as Mary Poppins.  My daughter even bought me a big polka-dot umbrella, which we refer to as my “Mary Poppins” umbrella.  While in Junior High Choir, I learned all the Mary Poppins movie songs, which I still love to sing.  So, you ask, what does Mary Poppins have to do with waiting?
If you remember, Mary Poppins was a very busy person, always going about fixing people and things.  If I can put it another way, she never let any grass grow under her feet.  Although I adore and love the story of Mary Poppins, God has shown me some very important lessons from her story that I would like to share with you.
#1. I can’t fix everybody or everything!
#2.  My view of what is seen with my human eyes is obscured and blurred this side of heaven.
#3. Am I allowing difficulties, trials, problems, and hardships to define who I really am?
#4.  Am I letting go and letting God?
Each of the above four things involve waiting on the Holy Spirit in my life.  Remember our definition of waiting?  To remain in readiness for some purpose, to stay where you are.  What might this look like in our lives?
#1. It is about waiting for God to do the fixing in my life and others!
#2.  It is about waiting for God to change my vision, to see the picture through His eyes.
#3.  It is about waiting for God to define who I am and what I should be doing.
#4.  It is about letting go and allowing God to do what only God can do.
This last year has found us staying where we are, but has it found us in readiness?  Readiness requires preparation and a willingness to move forward.  Therefore, if we know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we must ask some hard questions.  Have I been waiting in God’s presence?  Have I been seeking God’s face?  Am I prepared to move forward, to do what God desires to do in my life?
Psalms 63:5-8 tells me, “For God alone, O my soul; I will wait in silence, for my hope is from you.  You only are my rock and salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken.  On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God.  Trust in him at ALL times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” 
Psalm 27:7-9, 13-14: “Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me!  You have said, ‘Seek my face,’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek.  Hide not your face from me.’ I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Waitfor the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”
Psalm 130:5-6: “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than a watchman for the morning, yea more than a watchman for the morning.”
In waiting, God gives courage, goodness, strength, understanding, refuge, hope, endurance and power to run the race of life.
“Have you not known?  Have you not heard?  The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth.  He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.  He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.  Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 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 40:28-31)
WAIT
Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried;
Quietly, patiently, lovingly God replied.
I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate,
And the Master so gently said, “Child, you must wait.”
 
“Wait? You say, wait?” my indignant reply.
“Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!
Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?
By faith, I have asked, and am claiming your Word.
 
My future and all to which I can relate
Hangs in the balance, and YOU tell me to WAIT?
I’m needing a ‘yes,’ go-ahead and sign,
Or even a ‘no’ to which I can resign.
 
And Lord, You promised that if we believe
We need but to ask, and we shall receive.
And Lord, I’ve been asking, and this is my cry:
I’m weary of asking!  I need a reply!”
 
Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate
As my Master replied once again, “You must wait.”
So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taught
And grumbling to God, “So, I’m waiting . . . for what?”
 
He seemed, then, to kneel, and His eyes wept with mine,
And He tenderly said, “I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens, and darken the sun.
I could raise the dead, and cause mountains to run.
 
All you seek, I could give, and pleased you would be.
You would have what you want . . .But you wouldn’t know Me.
 
You’d not know the depth of My love for each saint;
You’d not know the power that I give to the faint;
You’d not learn to see through the clouds of despair;
You’d not learn to trust just by knowing I’m there;
 
You’d not know the joy of resting in Me
When darkness and silence were all you could see.
 
You’d never experience that fullness of love
As the peace of My Spirit descends like a dove;
You’d know that I give and I save . . . (for a start),
But you’d not know the depth of the beat of My heart.
 
The glow of My comfort late into the night,
The faith that I give when you walk without sight,
The depth that’s beyond getting just what you asked,
Of the infinite God, who makes what you have LAST.
 
You’d never know, should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that ‘My grace is sufficient for thee.’
Yes, your dreams for your loved one overnight would come true,
But, oh, the loss!  If I lost what I’m doing in you!
 
So, be silent, My Child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to get to know Me.
And though oft’ My answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer is still, ‘WAIT.’
 
(Author unknown; used with permission from SkyWriting.Net.)
 
Prayer:
“Father God, help me to wait patiently for your work in my life, my family, my sphere of influence and the world!  Thank you, Father God, for the grace, mercy and love you give in the waiting. Amen.”