The waiting

 THE WAITING

                                   

 I titled this blog the waiting, because waiting on God  is a huge part of our Christian life. When we pray to God He is always there to answer our prays, but often times we fall short in the process of the waiting period. No one wants to have to wait on God to work it out, We want a quick fix. As I was reading in Exodus about how God delivered the children of Israel from the egypt,  I couldn't help but to recognize that the moment the children of Israel cried out to God He answered them; However, it was still a long process before their total deliverance took place. It all looked bad on the outside but, God was doing great things behind the scenes the entire time. God sent Moses to tell Pharaoh to let His (the children of Israel) people go. When Pharaoh refused to let them go, God sent plague after plague to egypt to warn Pharaoh that He was fighting for His people and that He should let them go. Each time that Pharaoh did not heed the warning, God hardened up Pharaohs heart. The harder his heart got the more that He refused to let the children of Israel go. So finally Israel was able to escape from egypt and when Pharaoh and his army tried to pursue them, God drowned them in the Red Sea.
  I'm sure for Israel that waiting period must've been daunting for them. Having to go through ten plagues and each time and watching their masters heart become harder and harder towards them was totally opposite of what they were praying for and expecting. I know that they had some doubts, questions, and concerns. At one point even Moses began to question God. But what they didn't know was that it was all apart of Gods plan. He wanted to hardened pharaohs heart so that He can destroy him so that they would never have to deal with the Egyptians again. Isn't that a great God!
  I think we can learn a lot from this situation when it comes to the waiting process for anything in our life. Waiting on God perfect plan to manifest in our life is one of the hardest things that we face as Christians. Whether you are waiting on a finacial situation to get better, a relationship to be restored, a sickness to be healed  a lot of times in the waiting it gets worst before it gets better. The only thing that we have in those situations is our faith in God and patience in order to get through it. I don't know about you but I'm tired of being so drained and defeated in the waiting process. I want to learn how to wait better! I don't believe it's God's will for us to be defeated in the waiting period. Today I want to talk about somethings that we can do that may help us to endure the waiting process so that we can make our waiting experience more enjoyable.

Making waiting enjoyable!

1.) Spend a lot of time with God.

Spending time with God daily is a great thing, but in tough times we have to be willing to go the extra mile with spending time with God. You have to be willing to make the necessary sacrifices to help you. Gods word is where our minds is renewed and restored,  and it is our strength in hard times. In order for us to get God's word into out hearts and minds we have to read it over and over. Scripture says that faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God Romans 10:17. Which means you can't have faith without having the word. I don't know about you, but for me, in a world full of distractions its quite hard to remember the word of God throughout the day. It takes me mediating on the word and hearing it over and over again to get it in my spirit.
 If we are not intentional about spending the necessary time that we need in the word, It's like drinking a cup of water, digesting it, and releasing it. In order for us to stay hydrated we have to keep drinking  water all throughout our day. Its the same concept with spending time with God. Find a way that you can spend time with God all throughout the day and be intentional about mediating on the word throughout the day. Listen to sermons, read on the bible app, get daily devotionals, and worship and pray constantly. These are all great ways that you can spend time with God throughout your day.

2.) Go through the ugly process.

The reason why we don't see victory in our lives is because we run from the process. We want things to go smoothly and when they don't we run. We don't want to go through the hard stuff, we don't want to have to make sacrifices, we don't want to be inconvienced at all. I don't think that we recognize, that we are sinful beings, that live in a falling world, and most of the time God has to bring us through extreme measures to get our attention in order to bring us to what He has for us. We want God to be our Genie and magically make things happen on our time and our way. That's not how things work. God ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts Isaiah 55:8-9. While we are looking for a quick fix, God is always considering our spiritual well being. He is always looking for ways that we can become more like Him, He is looking for ways that we can be totally free from our situation, He looking for ways that we can learn to trust in Him more, He is looking for ways to draw us closer to Him. We have to learn to desire what He desires and understand that the process is necessary. So, my advice, if you truly want to see victory in your life be willing to go through the ugly process and trust that God knows what He is doing.

3.) Look for ways to grow.

 I think we miss the mark in recognizing how beautiful and full-filling growth can be for us. Yes, growth is painful and growth is uncomfortable and especially in negative situations, but there will be nothing more gratifying on this earth, than you being created into the image of God. We will have trouble and trails until the day that we die (John 6:33), but growing into the image of God is something that brings you eternal peace and contentment in a temporary and chaotic world. If you can learn to be ok with being uncomfortable and find ways to grow through every situation, than you will always find peace and contentment in your life. Think about your situation and all of the positive things that may come from you choosing to grow through it. Also, Weigh your options. You can learn and grow from your situations or you can be defeated and stuck. Your choice. God promises us that everything will work for our good (Romans 8:28) but we have to be willing to do our part.

4.)Learn to appreciate patients.

 Everything that is worth having in this life are things that we have to wait for. You want a healthy marriage, its takes patience, you want to reach a financial goal, it takes patience, You want to be a better parent, it takes patience, You want to be healed , it takes patience. Patience is not an option, its something that we need for our Christian walk. We can't do the right thing without having patience and its impossible for us to see the manifestation of Gods blessings in our lives without having patients. James 1:4 tells us to let patience have its perfect work so that we would be complete and lacking nothing. Without having patients we will never be able to be complete.
 I think that if we can see the value in being patient than we can learn to appreciate it. Patience is a virtue, patience is a gift from God, Patients is something that is essential to our Christian walk. I know patience is something that doesn't come natural to us, but if we can understand that we won't get any where in life without it, than we can learn to accept it.