“But for you, O LORD, do I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer” (Psalm 38:15 ESV).
Waiting is difficult. I should be good at waiting. I have experience. I spent fifty-four months—4 ½ years—being pregnant. It was difficult every time, even though there was a terminus, a line drawn in the sand, a light at the end of the tunnel (literally). This pregnancy stops here! It does not go on indefinitely.
Our lives are gobbled up by waiting. We can’t wait to be 10, then 13, then 18, then 21, then 25. (Our anticipation isn’t so eager after that.) We wait in line. We hope for spring, summer, fall, and winter. We are excited for school to start and then for it to end. As we sit in slow traffic, we search in vain for progress on the never-ending road construction, so our commute isn’t so miserable. We wait for spouses to come home from faraway lands. We wait for loved ones to return. We wait for Christmas.
We long for Christ’s return.
I am now engaged in a variety of literary waiting. An agent has my revised manuscript. What will she think? We’ve been bouncing it back and forth for a year now. I’m prepping my bible-study material to sell on this site—waiting for copyright permission, straining toward the completion of the project, working hard to get there. I’m looking forward to my first formally published writing to hit the presses in September. I’ve been anticipating these events for several decades. Restless agitation disrupts my dreams.
We often miss large chunks of life, because our gaze is focused on the distant horizon.
If we can detach our gaze from the faraway event and focus right in front of us, it helps with the waiting. To fully live in the moment, enjoying it to the full, mind and attention focused on what is occurring now—that is the challenge. Anticipating Christ’s return seems to be the only exception to the rule. Longing for his coming makes our daily living more bearable and joy-filled. Awareness of him gives us the motivation to move forward.
I am my best at waiting when my eyes and heart are fixed on him. When I keep in mind that he is the author of my circumstances, the designer of my talents, and the fulfiller of my dreams, my waiting takes on a new consistency. It is then faith.
It’s easy to trust him when the longed-for goal is in my hand. That is not faith; that is sight. But when I am confident in him while I’m waiting, when the waiting stretches me to my limit and beyond, putting me on my face before him, causing my faith to grow, that is what delights his heart. Then I’m walking in faith.
Then I can give alert attention to the work he has given me to do now, while I’m waiting—the growth in knowledge of him from his word, the articles and manuscripts to be written and revised, the brokenhearted who need encouragement, the small children who must be held and cherished, the sister in Christ who needs assistance, the son who needs a phone call. While completing all the tasks the Lord has given me at this moment, eager expectancy percolates in my mind.
Master, I trust in you.
“I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living! Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!” (Psalm 27:13, 14).
I loved your paragraph: “I am at my best at waiting when my eyes and heart are fixed on him…….It is then faith.” I have found it to be so. All we are promised is this moment. How important that we concentrate on what He would have us do today. Rejoice in Him. Desire Him. Love others as fully as we possibly can because He first love us! I’m praying for your waiting too and loving you.
If things are easy and I don’t have to rely on the Lord, I don’t grow much in the area of faith. But when I can’t see what’s coming and don’t know what to do while I wait, I have to rely on him. It stretches me, forcing me to trust and to walk by faith. This entire process of writing and querying and revising and querying again is causing me to grow in my Christian walk and to become a better writer. It’s daunting. But it’s a good process.
Melinda, I’m so glad to see this! I was thinking last night how much I missed reading one of your posts! I did not get the notice in my email this time but do have it on my iGoogle page. Wow! There it was this morning! Praise God!
You are so right! Focusing on Jesus is what it’s all about! We are then like Peter when he walked on the water BEFORE he took his eyes off Jesus and began to fall. I wonder when I’ll finally learn to KEEP focusing on Him! I thank God for all the trials that make me cry out to Him! That’s the only way I grow, it seems!
THANKS AGAIN, MELINDA!
LOVE YOU!
Aunt Jackie
I’m glad you found me! One problem with moving the site, was that I “lost” all my followers. All of you became detached somehow and don’t receive the emailed blog posts any longer, until you sign up on this new site. There didn’t seem to be any way to avoid it. I hope everybody else eventually finds their way over here. By typing in the URL for my old site, you’re directed here immediately.
It seems faith is a lifetime lesson. God has to keep us in school all our lives. I don’t think we can ever get faith “down,” and move on to the next thing. I’m encouraged by Abraham, whose faith we see grow in tiny increments over the course of several decades. His faith walk is very much like ours.
At first Abraham obeys partially. He tries to follow this God he just met. In obedience to God, he leaves Ur, but he takes along family members, in spite of God’s directions to leave them (Gen. 12:1). It’s messy. He stops in Haran, waiting until his father dies. Then he leaves again, but (whoops!) still takes along family, his deceased brother’s son–Lot. This causes problems later.
He arrives in the promised land and calls on the name of the Lord; but there is a drought. So, without God’s instructions, he leaves and goes to Egypt. There he gives away Sarah to Pharaoh. God protects her, and he gets her back. He returns to the promised land, separates from Lot (finally), but later has to go and rescue him when Lot chooses to live in a dangerous place. Abraham’s handling of the victory shows faith.
Right after this, God meets with him, promising him a son from his own body. Abraham believes and his faith is credited to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6). But immediately afterward, he takes Hagar and fathers a child with her, instead of trusting God to give him a child through Sarah. This decision is still causing problems.
Thirteen years later God gives him a physical reminder (circumcision) and reminds him of the promised covenant. Three angels (one probably a pre-incarnate Jesus in angelic form) come to tell him Sarah will have a child within a year. That should do it, right? No! Immediately afterward, Abraham gives away Sarah again. God protects her. Abraham gets her back, and FINALLY Isaac is conceived, because Abraham believes God to be faithful (Hebrews 11:8-12). This all took at least 25 years.
Genesis records more mistakes after this. I’m convinced the Holy Spirit had all this dirt recorded about Abraham (and most everyone else in the OT), to give us hope. Abraham is just like us: blind, often faithless, taking matters into his own hands, bumbling around trying to obey by following cultural dictates or his own preferences.
If God is willing and able to save him, then he is willing and able to save us. In spite of ourselves, he loves us, changes our hearts, makes us able to comprehend, gives us faith, and nudges, prods, and stretches us to cause us to grow. It’s all him.
“He who began a good work in you will carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6 NIV). “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Phil. 2:12b-13 NIV).
Wow! What a great lesson, Melinda! Will this type of Bible-study material be the publication you mentioned? This is a great lesson on faith! It really gives hope!
I quite agree that the Holy Spirit tells us all about those “heroes” of faith … warts and all! Otherwise, we’d lose hope, being so human. However, learning that they are human, too, helps us to keep on!
Melinda, this one came to my email, since I checked both of those boxes at the bottom. I think your readers will all find you, since you have the message at your old site.
THANKS FOR THE GREAT LESSON ON FAITH, MELINDA!
LOVE YOU!
Aunt Jackie
I’ve been writing inductive bible-study material for my church for the past 7 years. Before that, I began studying inductively in 1988 and was trained as an inductive bible-study leader through Precept Ministries in 1995. (See Credentials page (http://wp.me/P2yxe2-4P).)
The inductive method contains three steps: Observation (What do I see? Hence, the first name in my URL: Show. What is God showing me?), Interpretation (What does it mean? What do I now know? Hence, the word: Know), and Application (How does this change me? Hence, the word: Grow).
Observation-Interpretation-Application. Show-Know-Grow.
The studies I’ll soon be posting are from Paul’s epistles, which we’ve been studying for the past six years. The above gleanings about Abraham are from my own inductive study of Abraham’s life over the course of many years, both in OT study and in NT study. Romans Chapter 4 is about Abraham. Tim and I have been through Romans numerous times. Every time through, we study these truths again.
Slowing down long enough to make accurate observations about what the text actually says and to compare the other places in Scripture that tell us about the same truths helps us arrive at correct interpretation. The Holy Spirit then applies these truths to our hearts, and we are changed in thought, action, and motive. Because we’re sinners, the medicine of the Word has to be applied frequently.
ShowKnowGrow is also the process I follow in writing fiction and inspirational material. When something is shown through a story or parable, it sinks down into our hearts. We feel the truth in our bones. We know it, because we can relate it to our own experiences. Once we comprehend the truth, we can then apply it to our own lives, provoking growth and change.
The reply you wrote on Abraham could be used in the adult Sunday School material that you wrote for Cook Publishing. It’s a whole devotion itself! You have applied yourself to the Word in such a deep, deep way over the years that the things you write reveal the meaning of Scripture in a way that most people have never experienced! May God bless your writing to bring many to Him and thus give Him great glory!
I agree with your mom, Melinda! I say, “Well spoken!”
I’m glad I’ve had good bible teaching in the churches I’ve attended, and I’m glad I learned about inductive bible study so early in my adult life. God’s word is medicine. The truth contained in it heals my heart and my mind. The more I apply it, the more I am healed and changed. When I choose to believe it, rather than my own deceptive emotions, I grow and change. I write for God’s glory. I leave the results in his hands.
“Thy Word was found, and I did eat it, and it was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart, for I am called by your Name, O Lord Most High.” Jer 15:16 , which I had memorized in the 70s came to me while I was recovering from my first cancer in 1993. His Word was better than all the medicine (nuclear or chemo)!