Waiting

I’m so tired of waiting; waiting for an answer, waiting for chicken to defrost, waiting for my kids to pee, waiting for God to answer a prayer, waiting for life to get better. It would seem the only way to learn patience is to have to be patient and I’m not okay with that. I would like for my problems to be solved now. I would like for my kids to literally “pee or get off the pot.” I would like for God to shoot me a quick e-mail regarding our agenda for the day. But unfortunately for me and all of my Type A friends, that’s never going to happen.

Psalm 32:8 (NKJV) says, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye.”

How is this even possible? How would you go about guiding someone with your eye? Your finger or your mouth I could understand, by pointing or speaking out instructions– but with your eye?

The word ‘eye’ in this passage in the original language means, “vantage point.” This makes much more sense. Especially when you consider God’s vantage point: all seeing, all knowing, all loving and all powerful. He has promised to guide us from His vantage point, from the unlimited way He sees things as opposed to the tunnel vision we have.

I like to think of God being perched high above me, like Zaccheus hiding in the top of a tree, seeing the path before me. When all we can see are the obstacles directly in front of us: a marriage falling apart, a child who is sick, a family member who is dying, a stack of bills that cannot be paid— God can see around these things to the end result. He can see our deliverance and the work He will do in us if we are just willing to keep walking in His way and believing His Word.

I know God has a plan. I’d just like a copy of it…with a table of contents, index and schedule of events. I’d like to know what’s coming, when to expect great things and when to brace myself for bad things, but that’s not how life works. If I “knew” what was coming where would my faith be? In the plan or where it belongs, in God?

2 Corinthians 5:7 (NKJV) tells us, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.”

In the face of impossible circumstances, we are called to believe God’s Word above what we can see with our natural eye, above the doctor’s report, above the hateful words of a spouse. We are to cling to our faith and the promises God gave us in His Word.

“Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.” James 1:3 (The Message)

I’m not sure if it’s human nature or just the nature of our fast food, 3G, hurry-up-right-now, society that makes us want to cut corners. But it’s the journey that sets us apart, it’s in the darkness that our lights can shine and it’s only in our weaknesses that God can be glorified. Trust Him, believe Him and wait on Him.

“I don’t think the way you think. The way you work isn’t the way I work. For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think. Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth, Doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, So will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed. They’ll do the work I sent them to do, they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.” Isaiah 55:11 (The Message)

Copyright © Robin O’ Bryant, Moms of Faith, All Rights Reserved