Wait

"Wait on the LORD;
         Be of good courage,
         And He shall strengthen your heart;
         Wait, I say, on the LORD!"  Psalm 27:14

One of the hardest things for a person to do is to wait on the Lord.  In every instance I know of, it's difficult.  When you've been asking God questions and waiting for direction, it is difficult to wait for His perfect timing to give you the answers and show you the path to take.   In those instances, I have found that waiting on Him and relying on patience is key, and worth the waiting in the end. 

When we were looking to move last spring, and we were just two weeks from our move out date and hadn't found a place to move to, people and friends truly thought we were going mad.  They thought we were crazy to wait for God to show us the perfect place.  Instead, their solution was to take something- anything, temporarily while waiting.  We chose to wait.  We chose to trust completely in God to show us precisely where He wanted us, and He did in a huge and glorious and amazing way.  My heart is still rejoicing, pretty much daily, for bringing us to this home in this city.  I really feel like my patience and my reliance on His provision for us was rewarded in such a huge way.  We love it here- we have found so much joy and love here, and we're just plain happy with our living situation.  Had we not waited on God, we could have missed this opportunity completely, and then where would we be?  Scary to think about that, actually.

But waiting on God can mean more than just having patience about a situation, or waiting on God for an answer to a question.  Waiting on God can simply mean that.  Sitting in the quiet and waiting on Him.  We are such busy people, and I know for myself, I have a very difficult time just doing nothing.  Those days when I don't have anything pressing that needs to be done, I'll find myself caught up in a book or puttering in the kitchen or garden.  Or I'll watch something on TV or surf the net.  But when was the last time you purposed to just sit in the quiet for a period of time and wait to see if God has something to say to you? Waiting on God is probably one of the most difficult things to do.

It's much easier to carve out some time to read the Bible.  Have ten minutes before the roast is done?  Just grab your Bible and squeeze in some reading time.  Prayer time can be done while doing other things- while folding laundry or doing dishes for example.  But quiet time.  Being still and waiting on God is so incredibly difficult because we are told that we need to be busy at all times.  We are told that being idle and not doing anything is wrong, and so when we try to not do anything, we feel like we should be doing something, anything.


"He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
   I will be exalted among the nations,
   I will be exalted in the earth.”  Psalm 46:10

God Himself tells us to be still and know Him.  To be still means to be devoid or abstaining from motion.  Also to be uttering no sound, and to be free from noise and turbulence.  Basically, it means to not be doing a thing- to be perfectly still, quiet and in a peaceful place.  Sometimes that can be a very, very difficult thing for a mom to find.   For years I've said that the shower is where I do my best thinking, because I can do what I need to do to get clean, and then I can just be there.  I can let the water run and stand there and let it wash over me and close my eyes and not be distracted by anything.  Sometimes that may only be a minute or two- but it's still a precious minute of stillness.  God has really given me some of the best ideas or thoughts while I've been in the shower having that brief moment of quiet time.

See, God knows me.  He knows the busy life I lead, and He knows that my children have my attention at all times, and He will never, ever fault me for that.  I remember feeling badly about that for a time, about not being able to find a cluster of time for quiet time.  Instead, I had to snatch little stolen moments when I could.  When I would take the laundry upstairs to fold and put away, once it was folded, I would often just sit on my bed for a minute or two and relish the quiet and the peacefulness.  It may have been ever so brief a moment, but it was enough to let God fill me with peace and re-energize me for the day.



God is a good God, all the time.  He loves His children, and all He wants is a few precious moments of stillness so that He can share His love with them.

"Then I will go to the altar of God,
   to God, my joy and my delight.
I will praise you with the lyre,
   O God, my God."  Psalm 43:4