To simply embrace it, rather than fight it. Because contending with it doesn’t get me anywhere. It doesn’t yield answers or bring clarity or cause lightbulb moments of understanding.
Because honestly, more often than not, there aren’t really answers to be found.
God promised to redeem all things. He never said they’d make sense.
That’s why He gives peace that surpasses our understanding. While there’s a lot I will never understand, I can be anchored by peace even in the chaos.
God shines brightest in contradictions. There is wholeness in brokenness. Sufficiency in weakness. Strength in surrender. Honor in humility.
I’ve also found Him to be ever-present in those moments and seasons that can seem uncertain. Those situations that pull the rug out from under me and even those that seem to shatter my world.
He is right there with me in those painful, dark, confusing times. Ever calling me to trust and to let go of my need to understand.
And so I am choosing to live in the tension of the uncertain, because I know that redeeming what is hopeless is His specialty…
It's to trust in the waiting.
Did you know that it has been calculated that if we add up the amount of time we spend waiting in a day, say waiting for the kettle to boil, waiting in a grocery store line, waiting on the phone, we spend over two hours a day simply waiting for some thing to happen. At the end of our lives, we will have spent roughly six years and three months simply waiting.
I suppose the question now should be - what do we do with that time? Because no-one likes waiting, waiting time is often seen as wasted time.
We live in an 'instant results' society, where we are told that we do not need to wait for anything. Credit card companies give us the assumption of why wait….. holidays, new cars, new clothes could be ours now - buy now, pay later.
Waiting time in our society is often seen as the equivalent of wasting time, but for God's children time is wasted when we try to do things in our own strength. We will never know how much time was wasted by Moses when he tried to do God's work in his own strength, or by Abraham when he tried to apply the wisdom of the world to the work of God, how much time and energy is wasted, how much unnecessary suffering and anxiety can be caused when we run the race on our own.
“Do not be anxious about anything,” says Paul, “but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” {Philippians 4:6}
Waiting is not idleness. Some of the hardest working people I know are called waiters. “Is everything all right , sir? Can I get you anything, sir? What is your order, sir?”
God's time is not our time, his ways are not our ways. Waiting does not come naturally to many of us, and as much as we might hate it, it is a key part of God's purpose to teach us, to strengthen us, to lift us high. A another key part of God's ways of teaching us is listening, a part of trusting, many of us suffer disappointments because we don't listen.
Don't lose heart, God knows all about it. And what's more as you wait for the answer, know that you will be growing, as you rest in his presence, he will lift you high.
Blessings
1 comments:
So many wonderful nuggets in this post. .. such as
"There is wholeness in brokenness. Sufficiency in weakness. Strength in surrender. Honor in humility."
"Redeeming what is hopeless, is His specialty." I love that.
If only we would be more willing to wait on Him ... there is so much to learn.
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