faithfulness

What to Do in the Waiting

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Are you in the midst of waiting on something, someone? Have you petitioned God for a specific need, and not yet received an answer? Maybe it has been days, months, or even years.

If so, you’re in good company. Most of us are waiting for some specific answers to prayer – for a family member to know Christ, for a friend to be healed, for a child’s heart to change, for our own hearts to change, for direction, for clarity. I know we are not alone as we wait on our own answers for what God has in store for our family.

What I have found difficult is the question of what to do in the waiting. Does trusting God mean doing nothing? I don’t believe so. Perhaps even more so in seasons like this, there are definite things I have realized I need to be doing in order to wait in peace and with faithfulness. These are a few small actions I have found helpful in our limbo season:

1. Pray for my posture

Yes, we have covered the specific item we are needing in prayer, we have had many others praying with us, and we keep praying for resolution. But to pray for my own heart, for the peace of God to settle in my heart, for my mind to be fixed on Christ and not on my situation – I have needed to be careful not to neglect these aspects of prayer. That in my season of waiting, my heart and mind are correctly lifted toward God, that my posture is worshipful.

One of my favorites promises is found in Isaiah 26, “you keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” [v. 3]. It seems like every day there are many distractions that pull my mind away from Christ, that demand my focus. When I find myself particularly anxious about my situation, it is usually because I have not been fixing my mind on Christ. Especially in this season, I have needed to cling to God in prayer, to keep my mind stayed on him.

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

Isaiah 26:3

2. Reflect on the character of God

How has God taken care of our needs in the past? How has he strengthened us through different seasons of difficulty, of waiting? Reflecting on how he has cared for us personally, and on his unchanging character, will strengthen us in our current seasons.

I don’t know about you, but in a waiting season like this, I realize my own weaknesses and limits in new ways. Jen Wilkin touches on what it means to be image-bearing children of God, “it means reflecting as a limited being the perfections of a limitless God. Our limits teach us the fear of the Lord. They are reminders that keep us from falsely believing that we can be like God. When I reach the limit of my strength, I worship the One whose strength never flags. When I reach the limit of my reason, I worship the One whose reason is beyond searching out.” [None Like Him -I recommend this whole book if you’re looking to reflect on God’s character].

When we see our own limitations more clearly, it ought to prompt us to worship God for his completely sufficient and unchanging character. While everything around us may be changing, he never will. 

Fixing our gaze on his character, rather than our situation, is worshipful.

Years ago, while walking through a dark season with a friend, I remember hearing JJ Heller’s song Who You Are where she sings, “sometimes I don’t know, I don’t know what you’re doing, but I know who you are.” What beautiful hope! We often don’t know the plans of God, or what he is doing in our life or the lives of others, but thankfully we can know who he is. Fixing our gaze on his character, rather than our situation, is worshipful.

3. Lament with hope

There can be this sense in our Christian communities that discouragement is not allowed; that it is unspiritual to be downcast. That one who is trusting in God never wavers. Thankfully, a good portion of the book of Psalms teaches us just what godly lament looks like. Over and over, David and other psalm writers cry out to God in their discouragement, in their distress, asking for his deliverance, for him to come through for them again… and they wait.

Multiple times between Psalm 42 and 43 the writer cries, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” [Psalm 42:5, 11; 43:5]. David writes in Psalm 40:1, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry.” Friends, we can cry out to our God, who is full of compassion toward his children, who knows of our pain, of our discouragement, and who offers comfort in the midst of it.

In our lament, we cling to hope. We are not ones to cry out to God with forsaken hearts, but with expectant ones, looking in hope for what God will do for us. David continues in Psalm 40:2-3, “he drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.” We have good reason to wait with great hope.

4. Cling to the promises of God

Several weeks ago, our pastor preached on the book of Joshua, and encouraged us that God is faithful to keep his promises. In fact, Joshua 21:45 says, “not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.” What an encouragement! What a faithful God we serve!

This prompted me anew to make a list of “the good promises that the Lord had made” to me. How can I cling to them if I don’t even know what they are? Years ago, I had memorized quite a few, but this season called for new reflection. Here are a few that I have been clinging to lately:

+ God’s sufficient grace: “”My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” [2 Cor. 12:9]

+ God’s never-ceasing love and mercy: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” [Lam. 3:22-23]

+ God’s guidance and protection: “And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.” [Is. 58:11]
and
“For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. This God – his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.” [Psalm 18:28-30]

I would challenge you to spend time in God’s word, reflecting on what he has promised, and make a list for yourself. Cling to these good promises of God!

——–

At some point, this particular season of waiting will likely end, and we look forward to that time. While we are still waiting, though, I am thankful for the opportunities to turn my gaze again and again to Christ, to be more deeply sanctified, and to learn anew what it is to trust him.

originally published on Dec. 3, 2019

Enjoy Every Minute

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Enjoy every minute.

Three little words. Words that elicit a rushing force of guilt like no others for this mama. In that early morning hour, hour after hour, when my arm is falling asleep because I’ve been laying on that side nursing my babe yet again and my eyes are drooping and the clock indicates only a few more precious hours of opportune sleep exist before the upcoming day.

In that normal morning hour when I rise to sounds of three little people who need me more than anyone has ever needed me before, and I feel like I have very little of worth to give.

In that breakfast time when my toddler refuses one more bite of her favorite oatmeal as a test of will and I must be consistent so she knows she can learn that love is not about just giving her what she wants, and so we sit and wait, for one of us to give in.

In that mid-morning hour when I think my baby needs a nap but she cries because she thinks not and I wonder how my motherly intuition can fail me so many times. I think maybe I never had that motherly intuition after all.

During that late morning walk when we have just had the most fun at the park and my toddler helps to push the stroller and runs gleefully in front of me, so free and independent and stumbles only like a human who has walked just a year does. I watch her independence falter, her glee fall to pieces, and her tears stream as she runs to me with her little button nose scraped and we are both broken.  

In that glorious naptime hour that is so anticipated and needed when both babies are meant to be sleeping but neither one is and I feel panic rising and my breath is short and I need space, time, quiet, peace and it doesn’t happen.

In that famous witching hour when I want to greet my husband into our peaceful home with smiles and kisses and something besides yoga pants but the kids are grumpy and I am grumpy and we all just need him as soon as he walks through the door. And we get a pizza for dinner.

It’s the hardest in that hour when I put my babies to bed for the night with stories and songs and lots of cuddling and tucking in. I failed this day, again, like I do every day. I failed to enjoy every minute. I will look back on this day in two years, ten years, thirty years and regret that I failed deeply at this and I cannot do anything now to fix it. This thought eats me alive and makes it hard for me to sleep those few hours and clouds my days with these three sweet gifts from God.

So I stopped trying.

And instead, I began to focus on truth, found in God’s Word. Nowhere, fortunately, does God command us to “enjoy every moment.” Rather, he commands us to be faithful. In 1 Samuel 24, as the prophet Samuel gives his farewell address to Israel, he recounts all that God had done for Israel since their slavery in Egypt, and instructs them to serve the Lord: “only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you” [24]. What has the Lord done for you? Called you to himself? Forgiven your sin? Given Christ to you as your righteousness? Consider these things.

What does faithfulness look like, for you, in your season?

This current season may be one where the Lord is working hard on your sanctification – praise him for that! For “he disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” [Heb. 12:10-11].

For me, faithfulness looks like this: embracing this season with little ones, full of hard and long days, thanking God for these children and the great responsibility of loving them; hourly checking my attitude, that it is not resentful or self-serving, but asking God to help me in my constant small sacrifices, to do so cheerfully; to with my words and actions point my children back to God, modeling for them what it means to “love God and enjoy him forever”; daily leaning into Christ’s sacrifice for me, accepting that God’s forgiveness covers all my sin, resting in his perfect love; seeking to honor God in all the dish-washing, diaper-changing, peace-making. It does not look like: enjoying all those hard moments, and dwelling in a place of guilt when I don’t. God would have us find our full enjoyment in him, not in our circumstances.  But through our enjoyment of him, we can, with gratitude, live faithfully, whatever our circumstances.

For very good reason, this verse has been a favorite lately:

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” [Lam. 3:22-23]

Even when we fail to be faithful, he never does.

Praise God!

originally published on April 15, 2017

Planted

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It may be that you are planted where you get only a little [sunshine], you are put there by the loving Farmer, because only in that situation will you bring forth fruit to perfection. Remember this, had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there. You are placed by God in the most suitable circumstances, and if you had to choose your lot, you would soon cry, “Lord, choose my inheritance for me, for by my self-will I am pierced through with many sorrows.” Be content with such things as you have, since the Lord has ordered all things for your good. Take up your own daily cross; it is the burden best suited for your shoulder, and will prove most effective to make you perfect in every good word and work to the glory of God. 

Charles H. Spurgeon

Believer, do you find comfort in this truth? 

The reality that God sovereignly ordains our days can be both a source of great turmoil and one of great comfort. If you are in turmoil over the place in which God has placed you, ask yourself why. Is it because you wish your life had gone a different way? Or because some situation did not turn out as you had expected, hoped, dreamed? Or because you find this current daily grind so monotonous, dreary, difficult? The truth is that God cares most of all about your process of sanctification, that way in which he is making you more and more like himself. Yes, he cares about your comfort, about your dreams and your desires. But mostly, he cares that you are transformed into the image of Christ and he will lovingly orchestrate your life in order to bring about this Christlikeness in you. 

The sovereignty of God is the safe place for the believer. What a comfort, to know that God has planted me here, in this very place, with these very people, for his good purposes! Does this change your perspective? He knows your sorrows, your difficulties, and begs you to come to him for comfort. He knows your dreams and longings, and desires to give these to you, according to his good will. He knows the depths of your heart and he loves you the same. Praise him!

Be encouraged today, that God has given you the daily cross best suited for you, handcrafted for you, his beloved, for your good. Your lot in life, in this season and the next, is given you in God’s great mercy for your further growth and his ultimate glory. 


And remember that he who has planted you in this place will properly water you, give you sunshine, and tenderly care for your growth. God does not toss his children to fight for their lives in the weeds alone and in our own strength, but promises to never leave nor forsake us, to make perfect his strength in our weakness, to provide us with all that we need. Grace upon grace, how wonderful it is to be a child of the living God!