The Sacredness of Waiting

There are moments when truth just hits you.  Sometimes, I will be listening to a sermon, and the Holy Spirit will take something that wasn't a main point at all, and make it a main point for me.  This morning my pastor was beginning his sermon about "A King is Born" and he mentioned how between the Old Testament and the New Testament there was a gap of 400 years.  The people of God had the prophesies and promises of the messiah to come, and then there was silence.  At that moment the thought came into my mind, "Then they had nothing except the promises of God to hold on to."  I felt a solemn sacredness about this.  Even now as I type it I can sense the powerful, holy truth that is there.  What a blessed thing it is to be in a place where you have nothing except the promises of God to hold on to.  This is waiting on the Lord.  This is faith.  It is trust.  It is hope.  And I sense even right now that being in that place is a holy, holy place to be.

However, it does not always "feel" holy or sacred.  Sometimes it feels scary.  I am sure that the people of God felt fear at times during those 400 years.  They went through terrible things, and I imagine they wondered, "God where are you?"  The waiting place can feel like betrayal.  As in, "God I thought you would be here by now, or do this by now, and you haven't.  I put my trust in you and it hasn't worked out like I thought it would.  You let me down."  That's just being honest right there. 

There are many temptations in the place of waiting.  Temptation to doubt God, to doubt his goodness, to doubt his power, to doubt his love, to doubt that he's listening or cares.  Temptation to feel discouragement, self pity, or anger.  Temptation to blame others, or ourselves.  Or how about the temptation to get out of the waiting place and try to come up with what we think we need on our own?

Yet, God calls us to the waiting place.  He doesn't place us in a dark room by ourselves.  We are NOT being punished.  No, in the waiting place is where, if we will still ourselves and focus on him, we can see that he is still there.  He holds our hand.  He sits with us.  He doesn't offer answers or explanations, but he whispers, "I am here."  The waiting place may be dark, but so is the womb.  It can be a place of growth and development, if we allow it to be.  And, just the like the womb, the waiting will not last forever.  In due time, God will bring about what he has promised. 

The 400 years the people of God waited was all so that at just the right time the messiah would be born.  It was not because God was callous to their cries.  It was not because they hadn't mustered enough faith yet or made themselves worthy enough yet.  It was because of the purposes of God.

There may be an area of your life right now where you feel like God is silent.  You may feel like there is a circumstance in which God has left you in the waiting place.  I cannot gaurantee for you what the outcome of that situation will be, but I can guarantee that if you will allow the waiting place to be where you draw nearer to God and more dependent on him, you will be in the exact right place to receive the answer you are looking for.

Believe for your miracle.  Trust in God and his promises.  Lean into hope and faith.  Press into prayer.  Serve others.  Most of all, make sure your heart is set on pursuing God- not just on getting the answers you want.  His highest goal for you is to make you more like Jesus, because in so doing you become a light to draw more people back to the Father.

Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
And the justice due me escapes the notice of my God”?
Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth
Does not become weary or tired.
His understanding is inscrutable.
He gives strength to the weary,
And to him who lacks might He increases power.
Though youths grow weary and tired,
And vigorous young men stumble badly,
Yet those who wait for the Lord
Will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary.
Isaiah 40:27-31

For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
it speaks of the end  and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come
and will not delay.
Habakkuk 2:3

I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living. 
Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord.
Psalm 27: 13-14

Commit your way to the Lord; 
trust in him and he will do this:
He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,
your vindication like the noonday sun.
Be still before the Lord
and wait patiently for him
Psalm 37: 6-7

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: 20-22

But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord,
    I wait for God my Savior;
    my God will hear me.
Micah 7:7

God Bless You,
Lisa

Who is Hearing My Prayers?

This morning I woke up early- for some unknown reason my body decided that I was done sleeping.  I am in the middle of a few days where I have purposed to set aside some things in order to focus on prayer for our nation.  (You can find out more about this national call to  prayer and fasting by clicking over to TheCall.)  So I said in my mind, "Ok God, if you want me to pray right now, I will pray."  I proceeded to pray silently, inside my mind as I lay there in bed. (I was tired, remember...)  It wasn't too long into my prayer time that I started to think about what I was doing- this silent praying.  I thought about Jesus, and how he prayed.  I know he prayed silently sometimes, but whenever he was confronting something, whether it be disease, demons, or death, he prayed out loud.  Paul, Peter, the rest of the apostles?  I can only think of examples where they prayed out loud.  I then thought about confrontation.  When we need to confront someone, how effective is it if we only confront them silently in our head?  It's not.  In order for effective confrontation to happen there has to be verbalization.

Much of our prayer life is spent in confrontation.  We may be confronting lack, fear, stress, hopelessness, sickness, relationship issues, despair, etc.  All of those requests on your prayer list, all of those things you are interceding for, it's confrontation.  We are confronting the devil and his plans and declaring God's truth and God's kingdom over the situation.  Yes, God hears your prayers when you pray silently, but its time for the devil to hear your prayers too!  Beyond this though, there is supernatural power attached to our words.  

God made mankind in his image, we are created in his likeness.  When God speaks, the world is created.  The spoken word has power.  As his image bearers we too carry power in the words we speak.  When Ezekiel was confronted with a valley of dry bones, this is what God said to him:

4 Then he told me to speak (prophesy) to the bones and say: “O dry bones, listen to the words of God, 5 for the Lord God says, ‘See! I am going to make you live and breathe again! 6 I will replace the flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you shall live and know I am the Lord.’”

7 So I spoke these words from God, just as he told me to; and suddenly there was a rattling noise from all across the valley, and the bones of each body came together and attached to each other as they used to be. 8 Then, as I watched, the muscles and flesh formed over the bones, and skin covered them, but the bodies had no breath. 9 Then he told me to call to the wind and say: “The Lord God says: Come from the four winds, O Spirit, and breathe upon these slain bodies, that they may live again.” 10 So I spoke to the winds as he commanded me, and the bodies began breathing; they lived and stood up—a very great army.  (Ezekiel 37:4-10, TLB)

In the same way Jesus spoke to the wind and the waves and told them to, "Be still!" (See my previous blog post for more about storms!) We are to speak to life's situations and command them to line up with the word of God.  What does God's word say about your situation?  Speak it over that situation and believe for God to do what his word says.  

There is also something supernaturally faith-building and encouraging that happens when we hear ourselves speak faith over a situation.  The fact is, how we speak about something affects how we think about it.  And how we think about it affects how we feel about it.  Your whole perspective can change when you align your words with God's.

If praying out loud is not already your habit, I want to encourage you to start praying out loud as much as possible. 

Proverbs 18:21 "The tongue has the power of life and death"

Psalms 71:8 "My mouth is filled with your praise, declaring your splendor all day long."

Matthew 21:21 "Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.”

God Bless You,

Lisa

Sometimes He Calls Us into the Storm

I was listening to this song today, and it made me think about the story where Jesus sent his disciples ahead of him, to cross a windy lake. 

Matthew 14:22-33 Living Bible (TLB)
²² Immediately after this, Jesus told his disciples to get into their boat and cross to the other side of the lake while he stayed to get the people started home.
^23-24 Then afterwards he went up into the hills to pray. Night fell, and out on the lake the disciples were in trouble. For the wind had risen and they were fighting heavy seas.
²⁵ About four o’clock in the morning Jesus came to them, walking on the water! ²⁶ They screamed in terror, for they thought he was a ghost.
²⁷ But Jesus immediately spoke to them, reassuring them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said.
²⁸ Then Peter called to him: “Sir, if it is really you, tell me to come over to you, walking on the water.”
²⁹ “All right,” the Lord said, “come along!”
So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. ³⁰ But when he looked around at the high waves, he was terrified and began to sink. “Save me, Lord!” he shouted.
³¹ Instantly Jesus reached out his hand and rescued him. “O man of little faith,” Jesus said. “Why did you doubt me?” ³² And when they had climbed back into the boat, the wind stopped.
³³ The others sat there, awestruck. “You really are the Son of God!” they exclaimed.
 
I was thinking to myself, Jesus may have known that a storm was going to come and he sent his disciples into it anyways.  There was another time the disciples were faced with a storm, with Jesus sleeping in the boat this time.


Mark 4:35-41 Living Bible (TLB)
³⁵ As evening fell, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” ³⁶ So they took him just as he was and started out, leaving the crowds behind (though other boats followed). ³⁷ But soon a terrible storm arose. High waves began to break into the boat until it was nearly full of water and about to sink. ³⁸ Jesus was asleep at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. Frantically they wakened him, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you even care that we are all about to drown?”
³⁹ Then he rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Quiet down!” And the wind fell, and there was a great calm!
⁴⁰ And he asked them, “Why were you so fearful? Don’t you even yet have confidence in me?”
⁴¹ And they were filled with awe and said among themselves, “Who is this man, that even the winds and seas obey him?”

Sometimes God may call us into a storm.  Sending us into the storm does not make him unkind or uncaring.  We may not know all the reasons for why we are in the storm, but the ultimate reason would be for His glory to be shown.  If you feel like you are in a storm I wanted to encourage you: its OK.  God sees you.  He knows.  He knows it's hard and how you are struggling to keep your boat upright in the midst of the wind and the waves.  He knows you're bailing hard and it really does feel some times like this boat is going under and everything will be lost.  In spite of how you feel, it is possible to keep trusting in God.  It is possible to praise Him.  It is possible to believe for light in the midst of darkness.  Remind yourself of who God is, not how big your storm is.  Remind yourself of the love and care that he has for you. The best way to do this is spending time in His word and in worship and prayer. 

Sometimes we really do feel like those disciples, we're about to sink and we wonder, "God, don't you even care?"  And God's patient reply is once again (after all you've seen, after all you've learned), "Don't you even yet have confidence in me?"  What has God brought you through already?  Remember where you have been.  And remember where you are going. 

The lyrics to the song "Captain" can be seen in this video, please watch it:

Hold on friend.  Every storm will eventually pass.  It won't last forever.  Peace will come.

God Bless You,
Lisa


P.S.  If you want to read more thoughts about being in a storm, you can read my previous blog posts here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).