How good at you at waiting?
Waiting can be one of the hardest things in life.
Learn the value found in Waiting on God in today's devotional.
My soul waits in silence for God alone; my salvation comes from Him.
He alone is my rock and salvation, my stronghold; I won’t be greatly moved.
Psalm 62:1 & 5
Waiting. How do we wait without growing weary? How do we wait for God?
Silence. Stillness. Serenity. Tranquility. I am not referring to an ad for a spa or the Virgin Islands. I am referring to a state of being in relationship to The Lord. Yet it is so hard to be still, isn’t it? It can be so difficult to sit alone in silence. It can be so challenging to maintain inner serenity amid a myriad of outside demands. Where can we go to find tranquility in the busyness of every day?
There was a time in my life when I could not be still. I didn’t know how to just relax or how to be alone with myself. I was too busy trying to do, to accomplish, to prove my worth, to win love and approval. I lived as if productivity justified my worth and value. Oh, I knew how to be alone; I spent much of my growing up years, teens and early adulthood alone, and feeling very different and very lonely. But I didn’t know how to be with myself alone. And there is a difference. I can be in the company of others and still feel alone and lonely. I can be with myself alone and either enjoy my own company or feel nothing but a gaping void of silence and aching loneliness.
In my own life, I came to find that until I invited God into that void and the aching loneliness …which I tried to fill in all the wrong ways …. and asked Him to fill me with His presence, that only then could I be alone with myself and not feel like I had to fill that time with something or someone else. As my relationship with The Lord grew, so did my relationship with myself. As my identity in Jesus Christ became stronger, I ceased striving for approval from others. As a result, I found that I planned space in my day to be still, to rest in The Lord’s presence, to pray and to listen. And I have found that when I don’t take this time, it means I have given something or someone priority over my relationship with The Lord.
Be still and know that I Am God.
Psalm 46:10
Our culture offers a thousand things to distract us every day. Technology allows us to connect instantly with someone on the other side of the world, and yet, as a whole, we are lonelier, angrier, and more depressed than ever. And I think as a result, people feel more isolated than ever. God created us in relationship. We were not meant to go through life alone. I am referring first to our relationship with God, then our relationship with ourselves (for Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-40 quoting Lev. 19:18, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”), followed by our relationship with others. If we take those in any other order, something is amiss. For how we see ourselves and therefore how we see others, will revolve around
how we see God, how we see ourselves through God’s eyes, and how we see others in and through our relationship with Him.
There was a story I heard about a man who had worked hard all day and when he came home, he just wanted to read the newspaper and relax. But his son wanted to play. Hoping for a few more moments to relax, the father tore a picture of the world from the newspaper and then tore that into several pieces. He told his son, “Here is a picture of the world. Take these pieces of paper, and like a puzzle, put them back together.” The boy ran off with the pieces of paper … but was back in no time at all. “Daddy, daddy, I did it! I put all the pieces together!” The father replied, “Wow, show me son! His son had taped the pieces together and showed the picture of the world to his father. “How did you put the pieces of the world back together so fast?” his father asked. “It was easy, daddy. There was a picture of a man on the other side. So, when I got the man right, I got the world right.”
God is the only one who can get the man or woman right. And when we are made right, we can be effective vessels for God in a dark and hurting world. God is a sanctuary for our weary souls. A place of refuge and a quiet shelter. God invites us to come as we are and be real before Him and with Him. Further on in Psalm 62:8-9 David said, “My safety and honor rest on God. My strong rock and refuge are in God. Trust in Him, people, at all times; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.” I Peter 5:7 says, “Throw all your anxieties upon Him, because He cares about you.”
When we get to a place in our lives where we truly experience the presence of The Lord, nothing else can compare! Nothing else can begin to satisfy us as His presence does. There is no carnal experience, no momentary pleasure, nothing money can buy, that can begin to compare with God’s presence. There is absolutely nothing like the presence of God!
I am not talking about being filled with God’s presence; every believer is filled with God’s Holy Spirit and therefore presence. And I understand that God is omniscient, so He is everywhere present at once. But God does not restrain Himself from the process of relationships. He can know the end and still experience the means. He ordained His entire creation in such a way that we can affect Him. There are countless stories in the Old Testament of how prayer affected God, and therefore, an outcome. The very key to living connected to The Lord God and living our lives by and through the power of the Holy Spirit, is prayer. And it is through prayer that we come into His presence. Time spent in God’s Word every day, is time in His presence. When we praise and worship Him, we invite His presence.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13-14
Then there is waiting. Waiting can be the most exhausting thing we ever do. I don’t know about you, but for me, waiting has been one of the more challenging struggles of my faith. It has taken years for me to understand and accept that everything in life is a process and that there is a season and a time for everything. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). I heard Beth Moore teach on waiting and what she said really ministered to my heart and soul. She shared that when we are waiting for a specific outcome, circumstance, person, answer, relationship, dream, or fill-in-the-blank, that we can become very weary. That kind of waiting can weaken our hope and sap us of strength. Yet Scripture says,
Those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings like eagles.
They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31
When we wait on the Lord, and our focus is on Him … not the outcome or answer or the circumstance or person, then we are renewed. David said, “My soul waits in silence for God alone.” (Psalm 62:1). There is strength and faith that grows in waiting. Times of waiting are never wasted. God uses that time to prepare us and to grow us. We all have a purpose that God designed us to fulfill. Are we spending the time in relationship with Him to know what that purpose is and how He is leading us? Are we resting in the pure beauty, joy and peace of His incomparable presence?
I would like to close by sharing a poem from Further Still, by Beth Moore about sitting long in the sweetness of God’s presence.
Sitting Long
Have you waited upon the Lord?
For His Word? For His hand?
Until He speaks
Until He acts
… And He surely will …
You need not wait upon His love
Patience to wait does not come from suffering long for what we lack
but from sitting long in what we have.
Are you consciously making time for the most important relationship you have? Not just here, but for eternity. If not, what is getting in the way? What can you do to make it a priority? May you be blessed and renewed as you spend time in the presence of The Lord!
Editor's Note:
This blog is by Freedom to Flourish Life Coaching Founder and Christian Life Coach, Jen Stone-Sexton. She is currently accepting new clients. You can learn more about Jen here.
Jennifer Stone-Sexton © 2022. Freedom to Flourish Life Coaching. All Rights Reserved.
All Scripture references and quotations used with permission: Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern,
Published by Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc., Clarksville, Maryland USA & Jerusalem, Israel
Further Still, © 2004 by Beth Moore, Published by Broadman & Holman Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee Used with copyright credit.
Photo Credits: Unsplash.com | Cover: photo-1531159243698-b48e4c40c228 |
1: Photo by Nicolas Horn on Unsplash | 2: Amy Treasure on Unsplash
Comments