When God Says, “Wait”
Originally written in July of 2020, these words remind me what an encouragement this might be to you today. Re-reading them myself I was thankful for the opportunity to look back on where we’ve been, and where we are now. We’re not in the same season of waiting anymore, but in many ways these lessons are still true. God’s never late, He’s always on time. And yes sometimes, He says, “wait.”
A lot of life happens with writings in my head that never make it to paper, or maybe we should say to “page.” For many months, and even years, I’ve been ok with that in knowing a lot of my work won’t be read or seen in motherhood. Recently however I’ve realized that there’s a fight for me to be busy and anxious and stressed.
There’s a hope that I’d be distracted and not use my gifts in a time of full motherhood and that I’d just look ahead to a time when kids are out of the house and it’s just me and the computer.
Well, I’m not looking ahead to those times! Here and now in the morning while my kids watch a very loud action adventure movie downstairs I wanted to write. I wanted to tell you about times recently when God is saying “wait.”
It’s been almost comical the amount of roadblocks we’ve encountered recently as we attempted to go down a road that we figured would be fun and fruitful for our family.
You don’t really need to know what we were headed towards, I just want to share with you that it’s ok to wait on things and to be ok with slow. I also wanted to share a bit of how that’s looked for us in hopes that it might help you!
Maybe you feel like all you’re doing is waiting. Maybe the waiting isn’t easy and it doesn’t feel comical, it feels cruel. I’m sorry. If the waiting is painful and you’re trusting in Him, I pray His arms would wrap around you and His peace would be your guard. I pray you’d know He fights for you and He has the best in mind.
His plans after all are better than ours. Do we believe that? Do we really? I believe we have free will and I’m really thankful about that. We aren’t robots and God doesn’t treat us like puppets. In that, how then do we live?
Well, first of all we fear the Lord. Yes we have free will but are we living in a way that is open and surrendered to what He wants first? Are we after our own praise and accolades or pointing others to Him?
In the last couple months we wanted to explore the option of something for our family and here’s what’s happened. Sales people haven’t called us back! Incorrect reports that need to be fixed have come up slowing down the process of us moving forward. A sense of “maybe we need to wait” has come upon us. Oh, did I mention sales people haven’t called us back? That one is comical to me when you feel like low hanging fruit!
The real truth I want you to hear is that the Holy Spirit will often speak to you! Maybe the Holy Spirit won’t say “wait” in your case, but maybe He’ll say “go!” Maybe you’ll hear a specific call or action to take.
Maybe you’ll feel peace to be still. Maybe you won’t hear anything at all and move out in faith.
In John 16 I love that Jesus gives us hope for now and hope to come. John 16:7 says, “It is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don’t go away the Counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send him to you.” Our benefit!
That’s hard to comprehend but I’m so thankful for this Counselor. And then in John 16:13, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears. He will also declare to you what is to come.” Jesus said before this in verse 12 that he couldn’t tell us now because it would be too much to bear.
Who has kids? How many of you know to wait to tell your kids about ice cream or a trip because it would be too much for them to bear. So also with us friends, so also with us.
We have so much good in store from God. For now we know He is our counselor. He is with us. He is sovereign over all, and He goes before us.
And, He may speak to us. He may say, “wait” or “go!” If it is wait, hold on to hope. Hold on to His promises. Call out to Him and be confident in who He is. He grieves with us, He knows our heart. He is good, all the time. Thank you Jesus!
