Seeing the Worth in Waiting

“No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.

We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love be with us, Lord, even as we put our hope in you.” (Psalm 33:16-22, NIV)

Before you ask, no, I have not had the baby. Last week’s lack of devotion wasn’t a silent announcement, it was just pregnancy brain.

And in the past week, Sam and I have been learning a whole new lesson in patience and waiting for the Lord’s time. It’s not something we’re unfamiliar with. We waited on God  to date. We waited on God to get married. We certainly waited on God to conceive this child. And now, we’re waiting on His appointed time for her to come.

And it’s good. We constantly need to be reminded of Godly patience. And if I see any common theme in the psalms, it’s that people struggle to remember to wait on the Lord. If you search out verses regarding waiting on the Lord, you’ll find that it’s all over the Bible, but a large concentration of them are found throughout the Book of Psalms.

And we have a tendency as humans to want to run out ahead of God the way a child runs out in front of their parents. We get excited, rushing on towards life’s next milestone or personal goal. We allow those life moments to consume our thoughts and strive with everything inside us to get to them. It’s natural, and it’s okay to be excited. The thing is, we can get wrapped up in those things and lose sight of the spiritual maturity that God wants us to achieve when we’re in that waiting period before we get to our big life moments and personal goals.

I will say this: the waiting is difficult. But it has never been without good reason. It’s never been something that I’ve resented God for in the end. Because in the waiting, God refined something within me, and it was a sweet time of communion with Him.

There is something about waiting that tends to push us to the feet of Jesus, and I think that’s why it’s so valuable to the Lord that we wait for certain things: because it not only allows Him to work in our hearts, but it reminds our fickle hearts to lean on Him. 

We cannot save ourselves. We cannot develop our own spiritual maturity for Jesus. Not without Him. We cannot strive and force Him to bend to our will. And waiting is part of the humbling of our hearts to the point where God’s will becomes more important than our own. Because if it were my will, my daughter would have been here a week ago. Sam and I would already be holding her and taking care of her, raising her. 

Technically, my due date was Sunday. And boy, were we ready for her to come. But it wasn’t– and at the moment I’m writing this, still isn’t– His will for her to be here. But that doesn’t mean that the Lord’s eyes are not on me or my little family as we wait to grow. It doesn’t mean that God has abandoned us in our waiting or forgotten us.

So I put my hope in the Lord. I put my hope in the fact that He sees and knows what I cannot. Maybe there’s something from within the womb that God is still working out, or maybe– and probably more accurately if I’m being honest– God is still working on something in me. Because I know I’m slow on the uptake. I’m slow in remembering that my waiting seasons are usually invitations to draw nearer to Jesus. It’s usually a reminder that I have to trust Him better. 

Because in all reality, when we find ourselves waiting, it’s an opportunity for us to slip our hand more firmly into His. So when we get that urge to rush on ahead of Him, He can tug us back to the place where He is waiting for us to settle down and be alone with Him. We could all use a lesson in allowing our seasons of waiting to make us more aware of where God is asking us to be and yielding to it. 

When we can do that all our busy, racing minds find contentment and peace. When we learn to let God do what He’s doing and draw near to Him, we find that the rest and quietness that we believe can only be achieved by reaching our goals is only found in Him. It was there and available to us all along, we just had our eyes and attention on the wrong thing.

What you’re waiting for today will come, friends. I know this as surely as I know that my daughter cannot stay in the womb forever. And as much as my heart yearns to hold her in the moments after birth– as much as I dream of reaching that moment with my husband where we can look at each other and physically hold God’s blessing for us in our arms– I hope that you can stand firm as I am that God’s timing is always better. It’s always sweeter. 

So don’t fight the wait. Embrace it. This morning, let go of the end goal and turn to God, who has orchestrated the wait, the journey, the growth, and the ultimate blessing– whether it looks exactly like you dreamt or completely different. For now, take this amazing opportunity to commune with the Lord and be with Him.

Not in a Hurry- Will Reagan & United Pursuit