Brittany over at "Daughter... Wife... Mom... Sis" chose the topic for our weekly Reflections post, and if you did not get a chance to check out the message video she chose, you should definitely do so (and it can be found here)! But if not, before I jump into my take on everything, the short version is that while we're instructed to wait on God in many situations, that instead of sitting in a waiting room, we should turn the situation into a work room. As in, do something while you wait in order to go the direction that God is trying to get you to go.
Often times, even as we wait, we have a pretty good idea (or at least a partial picture) of what the final destination looks like. Take church planting for example (since that is what most strongly applies in my life)... we always knew the big picture and had the end result in mind, but when it was just a vision, there were millions of little things to get through between point A and point B. We had the vision, could "see" the people in the chairs on that first day, but when we decided to plant, we didn't even live in this town yet! God had truly laid this mission upon our hearts, we felt called to do it, and yes, a lot of the next year would be spent waiting... waiting to move, waiting to hear back from people regarding a facility, waiting to met the right people, waiting for finances to roll in... etc. Since we knew and had confirmation time and time again from God that this was HIS plan, I guess we could have just sat around praying and hoping that all of this stuff would happen in His timing, but that could have taken years and caused so worry. Instead, we turned out waiting into working. We moved to Lexington and made arrangements to live with my sister and her family until we could afford housing of our own, Josh made phone call after phone call to other pastors and tried to connect with folks, we talked to people everywhere we went to try and strike up some friendships, and we gave out of our own pockets with faith that God would match or exceed our own personal contribution. The list goes on and on about the countless hours and sacrifice that we poured in, but because we put in the work, God has been blessing our socks off. I really feel like had we just sat around and waited for this dream to miraculously come to fruition, we would still be waiting. Our God is faithful, but he also does not expect us to be lazy.
If you're in a current place of feeling complacent and waiting for something to change in your life, I challenge you to re-evaluate your current situation and pray for direction. Seek direction so that you can begin moving toward it... turning your waiting into working. My very favorite point from Holly's entire message was this:
Let your pain trigger a praise as you position yourself to let God work on you as you wait.
Your pain can be due to frustrations, complacency, fear of the unknown, or any number of things. But the word that jumps out at me is POSITION. POSITION YOURSELF... meaning Pray more. Ask God for direction. Get in the word. And paise Him even in your times of uncertainty. In other words... SEEK. Sometimes He's just waiting for you to stop long enough to ask! And then once you have a direction... get to work! A book will never get written if you never put the pen to paper. A non-profit would never get started unless someone drafts a business plan. A child will never grow spiritually if the parent never takes the time to show and teach him or her daily what it means to live out our faith.
I hope these words encouraged you today, but I feel like I cannot do Holly's message justice, so if this struck a chord, I highly recommend listening to her words. Brittany posted her take on it over at her blog (found here) and if it did strike a chord and you have chosen to share with us, please link up below!
Technically it's my week to choose a topic, but I am going to kind of cheat and pick one that Brittany mentioned a few weeks ago. It's the song "Never Once" by Matt Redman. We're all about talking about risk and overcoming fear here lately, so this goes along with that fear (hmmm.... what is God telling the two of us lately?). You can find it here: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1bXG4WIesA). Listen to the lyrics, meditate on the words, and share with us how it spoke to you next week.
And as always, thanks for letting me share my heart... and thanks for sharing yours. My little blog-land is one of my most favorite places to be.
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