5 Important Reasons to Embrace the Waiting
It’s been described in various ways. Sometimes it’s called a dark night of the soul. Sometimes it’s called burn-out or depression. Mid-life crisis is another name that is used. These are times when we seem caught in an unending period of transition. God is mostly silent. Our lives seem to have little purpose. Not in control, we search for it, but can’t seem to find a way to end these lonely, frustrating times. So, we wait, hoping that somehow, God will bring us out of them.
And He will. He always does…in His time.
Wilderness times are exceedingly difficult. The loss of control makes it seem like we have lost ourselves…or our way. This is not bad. It is good for our soul to be trained to rest in God alone.
Whether it is a “dark night” time in your life or an extended transition, don’t resist. Ask God for the grace to receive, even welcome, this time. Don’t fight the constant transitions our nomadic, missionary lives bring. Instead, in the uncertainty, lean in to receive all God has. As you do this, your life will yield fruit. One day, the transformation God brought in you through those difficult waiting times will have great impact.
Richard Rohr in his book, Everything Belongs, says it well. “We have to move out of ‘business as usual and remain on the ‘threshold’ (limen, in Latin) where we are betwixt and between. There the old world is left behind, but we’re not sure of the new one yet. That’s a good space. Get there often and stay there as long as you can by whatever means possible. It’s the realm where God can best get at us because we are out of the way. In sacred space, the old world is able to fall apart, and the new world is able to be revealed.” While I don’t agree with everything Richard Rohr says, this is a worthy statement.
Reading this, I was struck by the phrase, “it’s the realm where God can best get at us…” I want Him to be able to get to me, to be able to transform and change me. The only hope I have of becoming like Jesus is if He has access to my soul to shape and form it.
Waiting For Normal to Return
The pandemic brought many changes to both our world and individual lives. Almost everyone’s was affected in some way. One effect was the dramatic increase in learning to wait.
- We waited for quarantine to finish so we could go outside again.
- We waited for vaccines.
- We waited for global travel restrictions to lift
- We longed for a time when we could gather in conferences and large meetings again
- Or for when we could go back to church without a mask on.
What a relief it is now that those things have come to pass!!!
My husband and I waited eleven months to return to our home in Thailand. One after another ticket has been changed or canceled, and visa options fell through. It was difficult. There was grief involved in the loss of the old times when things were easier. They were stressful times for everyone across the globe.
Embrace Today
When we came to the USA in March of 2020, we had no idea we would be there eleven months. I admit. There were days I greatly longed for things to go back to “normal.” There were things about my 2019 life I missed greatly!
During the pandemic, each day I tried to embrace what God had for me that day. I told myself – “God is in control of my life, my future, and my transformation. His purposes are greater – far better than what I can imagine or achieve.”
When those feelings, that longing for the way it was, rose in my heart, I gave it to Him. Letting go of my desire to determine my own future, to be in charge of when the waiting would end. I whispered the words, “I trust You. Your purposes are good. Father, I want Your will not mine. I’m so glad You are in control. And I surrender.”
In response, He gave me the grace to embrace that time of waiting with joy. I received new manna for each day during the pandemic.
Don’t Lose the Lessons
The pandemic is fading into the records of history and it’s challenges recede in our minds. We should be careful, though, not to lose the lessons it taught us. Other times of waiting and transition will come. Its part of life. What did we learn about waiting that can help us in what we face today? Or what we will face tomorrow?
Surrender and trust. God works all things for good. Live each day fully unto Him and not for progress or productivity. Find joy in submission and faith in His timing and purpose. Those are some of mine. They are lessons I want to hold on to. To carry into today’s waiting times.
And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you.
Ps. 39:7 ESV.
Reasons Not To Fight the Waiting Times…
1) God is forming you.
This is a good space. God has access to you in unique ways in the waiting periods when you are not in control of your life. We want to become like Him. Yet we resist.
Our brokenness is exposed to His healing touch.
Would you ask a heart surgeon to rush an operation? Of course not! God is deeply at work in our inner beings. Stay still and let Him do what is needed for as long as it takes.
2) God is training you to trust Him more deeply.
The things God wants to release through you in the next season require a greater level of dependency on Him. We want to see greater fruit from our lives, but don’t like to let go of control. The more we let Him be in charge, the more powerfully He can use us. Choose to let God determine if you need to grow your trusting God muscles in this season, or your ministry skills.
3) God’s purposes and ways are higher than ours.
We can trust Him because we know Him. His Word is true.
Isaiah 55:8 says, ““My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.” Say it out loud – right now. “Your thoughts are nothing like mine, Jesus. Your ways are far beyond what I can imagine!”
Do you believe that to be true? Sometimes we have to convince our souls to believe the truth!
4) God’s character and promises haven’t changed.
In the waiting times, we remind ourselves of His promises. We meditate on His character.
“He is good. He is faithful. He has called me to bear much fruit,” we declare.
What has He personally promised you? Spoken to you about as far as your calling or destiny? Review and meditate on those things.
Remember who He is.
Times have changed but God has not.
5) There are blessings to be received in the desert.
Jesus endured many things in the desert. Temptation, hunger, attack from the enemy. Yet when He came out of the desert, His ministry began with great anointing. Having gone through those trials and overcome them, there was new strength.
In wilderness seasons, I’ve found my walk with Jesus grows sweeter…more intimate. It’s as if the chaff has been burned off, and my soul is purified afresh. The most powerfully transformative moments in my spiritual life have come from the deserts.
Receive the blessing. Watch for it. Wait, but not in hopelessness.
Waiting in Hope
Steven Curtis Chapman wrote a song when he grieved the loss of his daughter. He wrote,
“We have this hope as an anchor,
‘Cause we believe that everything God promised us is true, so…
We wait with hope,
And we ache with hope,
We hold on with hope,
We let go with hope.”
In the waiting of this season, how is God filling your heart with hope?
Let me know in the comments below or on the Missionary Life Facebook page.