In the middle of the trials or uncomfortable circumstances, it’s so hard to sit still and wait for God’s direction. We often want to control the outcome, run or fast-forward to get to the other side. But what if the biggest blessing was in the waiting?
Megan Wright
Day 1
Scriptures: Psalms 20:4-7, Psalms 25:4-5
It was one high-school summer vacation car ride, sitting in the back of our old station wagon, with Reba McIntire playing on my Discman, that I remember thinking how incredibly slow my dad drove and how incredibly long it always took to get to our vacation destinations. The same highway scenes for hours. The wandering thoughts of why we couldn’t just fly, why we couldn’t afford to fly and why we didn’t have a nicer car to drive in. Because when you’re stuck in a car for hours on end as a passenger, with no control over anything – you start to question everything.
When you’re in the waiting – are you a backseat road trip kid?
We start to ask the who, what, when, where and why’s of God? Because we just want to know it all, right away, and understand why we’re going through something so that we can make sense of it. So that we can plan, so that we can avoid the pain, so that we can skirt around the uncomfortable and get back to our comfort zone. We would rather turn our lives upside down on purpose than release control, sit still and wait on God.
Sound familiar?
But when we learn to sit still, we allow the Holy Spirit to change our perspective. When we learn to wait on God, we learn to ask for HIS way, HIS path, and HIS truth. We allow space for a relationship with God that can shift our heart posture to trust and obedience instead of fear and control.
So today, pray Psalm 25: 4-5 out loud as we prepare our hearts to learn how to wait on God.
Day 2
Scriptures: Psalms 95:6-11, Hebrews 3:7-11
The Israelites had just come out of Egypt. They had just watched God part the Red Sea as they walked on dry land RIGHT THROUGH IT. They had just witnessed a MIRACLE, a prayer that was answered in a mighty way. They had experienced God’s promised provision in a way that they couldn’t have even imagined. As they looked back, they watched God destroy their enemies but as they looked ahead – they started to complain about the wilderness in front of them.
They didn’t know how long that part of the journey was going to last but God had promised that they would go to the land flowing with milk and honey (for my fellow friends with food allergies, this truly does sound like heaven). And they still complained.
How often do you complain about your current situation instead of recalling how God has answered you in the past? Ouch.
We forget how God has come through so often in our past because we become so focused on what we don’t have in the present. We start to act out of our emotions (like fear or panic) instead of facts or rationality. We start to view other situations through the lens of our waiting (impatience, loss of hope, negativity). We try and fill that lack of movement with movement in other areas like emotional eating or emotional shopping (*adds to cart) because we get antsy.
And then our hearts get hard because we are so impatient.
In Psalm 95, God said “Do not harden your hearts like they (the Israelites) did” or we will be like them and NOT ENTER REST. God’s not talking about a nap. He’s talking about REST. Emotional and spiritual REST. Not angst, busyness, hustling, worrying, fretting.
That rest doesn’t come when we’re complaining about our circumstances. It doesn’t come when we try and control the situation.
It only comes when we stop, sit still, and trust that God is making a way through to the other side.
Day 3
Scriptures: Numbers 13:25-33, Numbers 14:6-9
Once the Israelites were in the wilderness, God told Moses to send out spies to the Promised Land, to prepare for the next part of their journey. When the spies returned, they reported back about what they saw. They said, “It certainly is flowing with milk and honey, and it does have great fruit…but”. And then they rambled off all the things that they didn’t want to face.
The spies were talking out of their fear; they were talking out of their lack of faith. They were talking through what their eyes could see, instead of the promise that God had given them that they couldn’t see yet!
The Israelites took their focus off God, and they listened to other peoples’ fear (the spies). And then those fears became their own. Not based on truth. Not based on what the Israelites saw or experienced themselves. Not based on the PROMISE OF GOD. They grumbled and complained. They started romanticizing how their life was before – listen they were SLAVES, it’s not like it was an awesome life – but when we are faced with tough circumstances and the unknown of how things are going to be, it’s easy to think about how things were before the trials. The Israelites ignored the truth because all they wanted was to get out of where they were at.
If we aren’t careful – the who’s around us might determine our next steps, instead of us allowing God to determine our next steps.
And then Caleb speaks up. He saw the good; he remembered God’s promise. When we are in the waiting, we need a Joshua and Caleb around us. We need people who are willing to speak up and give us a bigger perspective than our circumstances. A bigger perspective than the people around us who talk out of their own fear and doubt. A perspective that sees the GOOD in the midst of trouble; that sees the ABUNDANCE OF GOD, in the middle of the waiting. We need people who are going to continually be the voice of God and REMIND us that the Lord is with us in the waiting.
We don’t know what’s next. We don’t have the answers that our flesh long for, we don’t know what the future holds. But we can have a say in the who – who’s around us speaking truth and light.
Who are your Calebs and Joshuas?
Day 4
Scripture: Numbers 14:1-5
Do you have a “why child”? The inquisitive type that asks you why about 35 times a day? I do. I also was one. The truth is that we are all “why” children at some point.
When we lose our job – WHY LORD?
When we have a rebellious child – WHY LORD?
When our marriage gets tough – WHY LORD?
When someone’s a jerk to us – WHY LORD?
When they’re out of French fries at your favorite restaurant – WHY LORD?
Why am I waiting, God? (I don’t want to wait; I want to do it my way).
Why aren’t you answering me, God? (I’ve prayed and prayed and you’re just not giving me direction).
It’s easy for “why” to become the first reaction if we aren’t intentional about our heart posture.
The Israelites responded with a why. Scripture says that they actually “grumbled” and asked the Lord, why. They even went a step further and said it would have been better for them to just turn around and go back to Egypt.
Why do you think that is? (See, there I go asking a why question).
Maybe because we are in a place of desperation. Because we’re stuck and we are feeling hopeless. Because nothing we’re doing is producing good fruit. Because we’re not getting the result that we want. It’s often when we reach that point, so nicely referred to, as “rock bottom”. When we can’t dig the hole any deeper than it is, and we get to the place of surrender because we’re tired. And in walks God. Not answering the whys but addressing the heart.
When we are waiting for trials to end – There are three big struggles that we are faced with that I like to call “growing opportunities”. It’s like that weird prayer of patience and then God gives you opportunities to be patient. Obedience, learning to release control, building our faith.
God already knows the outcome of the trial. He wants to meet us in the middle to capture our hearts through obedience and faith, to teach us how to release control and TRUST HIM. Because when we trust him, the “why” isn’t the focus anymore, our relationship with him is.
Day 5
Scriptures: Genesis 16, Genesis 17
Remember when Abraham was creeping 80 years old, and God told him that he would make him a great nation? At 80. And then he and his wife Sarah ended up trying to take things into their own hands and he had a child with their maid. Yep. That’s complicated.
Isn’t that how we are though? We make a mess of things and then we say ok God here you go – this is what we’re working with.
And God said – NO Abraham, I’m going to do what I said I was going to do. Because GOD FULFILLS HIS PROMISES.
Abraham fell on his face and laughed at God saying – God, are you really going to make me a new dad at 100 years old? Dang – I’m 41 and I feel this in my bones – literally.
How many times have you just cried out to God, asking him “How”?
And then God did as he promised. His word did not go void. At 90 years old, Sarah delivers a baby. Can you imagine the celebration? The pure shock? The gossip? The looks? The joy, gratitude, love, and abundance that come from the promise that God fulfilled!
God can make beauty from our ashes. God can move in ways that we will never comprehend. And he just asks us to obey, release control, and have faith.
Abraham was obedient based on previous victories of where God showed up. He knew God’s promises were true, he remembered the character of God, he remembered what God had done in the past, he had a history of waiting on God, he had a history of God coming through after his waiting. When it came time to wait again – Abraham knew what God could do if he just waited for God to do it! In obedience, releasing control, through faith.
God didn’t need anything that was put on that altar, He wanted Abraham’s heart. And he knew he had it but maybe Abraham needed to be reminded that he still had it. He wanted Abraham to live HIS FAITH OUT to be a reminder to him. Because sometimes we can get so caught up in the waiting, that we lose our way and our focus – we lose our priorities.
But when our FAITH is our first obedient response, the waiting is no longer the focus. Our faith is.
Day 7
Scriptures: Job 1:20-22, Job 13:15-18
How the heck do we wait – when we’re in pain?
When we’re just barely holding on; when we want to just rebel and say screw it, when we want to be angry with God – how do we sit still?
It’s a heart posture toward God that is going to keep us waiting well. And waiting well doesn’t mean you’re not allowing yourself to feel or process, it’s feeling and processing while still being obedient, releasing control, through faith. Waiting well means that we still acknowledge the trials, we acknowledge the attacks, but we respond through the Holy Spirit, instead of reacting in our flesh.
Satan used multiple tactics to attack and attempt to destroy Job. Within a matter of moments, Job’s whole world fell apart. He lost a source of income in his crops, his team, his animals, and his children. He pitted Job’s wife against him.
And his first response was to fall to the ground and worship.
What if, instead of looking for blame in the trial, we worshipped? What if, instead of lashing out, we worshipped? What if, before we sinned in our anger, we worshipped? What if we first, shut our mouths, and lifted our hands instead? Not because we are trying to avoid the pain but during our pain, we still acknowledged that God was in it with us and that we trust him with the outcome.
Because sometimes when we think that things couldn’t get any worse, they get worse. Our trials are periods of waiting – and how we respond determines the direction of our faith.
When we experience deep loss and we are waiting on God to move with healing or restoration and we are faced with pressure from those around us, we must believe that God can heal us and restore us, to wait well.
What if, in the midst of our trials and waiting, our “how” becomes WORSHIP? And that “how” is LESS focused on us and MORE focused on GOD.
Because when our response in the trial is WORSHIP and declaration of WHO GOD IS, then that builds our trust of WHAT GOD WILL DO when we wait.
Day 8
Scriptures: Psalms 26, John 11, John 9:1-3
When Lazarus was dying, Jesus knew the outcome – he had prophesied over it before he went to the tomb and yet he still wept. He mourned. He felt it all, and he comforted his people. He could have avoided all of that and just left on time and went and healed Lazarus before he died. But he didn’t. He was in the middle of the pain, with Mary and Martha.
God is with us during our trials, circumstances, and pain. Sometimes he isn’t going to answer a prayer in the way that we think he should. But he’s going to be with us in it and through it, to the other side of it.
Our life shouldn’t be consumed with the dread of negative possibilities, or the worry of when the next storm is going to hit, or trying to dodge the bad, uncomfortable, or less than ideal scenarios. God did not create us for that. He wants us to experience His peace in the midst of chaos, his calmness in the middle of the fires, his rest in the midst of exhaustion, his presence at the center of our isolation.
You see, it’s not our trials that define us, but how we seek God and give him the glory, during the trials. It’s about who we can lead to Jesus, based on our response to them. It’s about the faith that we build when we release control of them.
When our focus is how we are obedient to God, it’s no longer about the outcome of the circumstance.
When we are trusting without wavering, we are no longer consumed with the anxiety of the unknown.
When we are walking in HIS truth – we won’t step into a naysayers talk that gets us distracted.
When we proclaim with our voice of thanksgiving – we get the opportunity to show others how to respond to adversity with worship.
And that’s when true growth happens – when our focus is our relationship with the Almighty, and the fullness of what only he can bring when we’re obediently waiting “so that the works of God might be displayed in us”.