Waiting…

I am so tired right now, I just want to sleep…I even considered skipping writing today, but now, I’m in the habit. I can’t sleep without putting thoughts to page for the world to see – especially in the midst of this 31 Day challenge writing about being Beloved – Agapetos.

Since it’s Tuesday, I am going to use the prompt from Tuesday @ 10 over at Finding the Grace Within and tie it into being Beloved.

It’s fitting:

Patience: something I lack so often.

I want to know God’s plan for me right now!

I want to have that plan happen right now!

I want to be successful (whatever that means) right now!

I want to have all the information ever in the history of the world… and, well, you get it.

But, being the Beloved isn’t just flowers and candy. It’s not just the easy times when we know for sure we are loved & feel that love & show that love to others.

It’s also the waiting…

Waiting for an answer to prayer (and then accepting the answer, whether it’s yes, no, or, more waiting…)

Waiting for God’s timing in an answered prayer.

Waiting for others to step in and do their part.

Waiting…

It’s like Hannah, one of my favorite women in the Bible. She so longed for a child. Her husband loved her deeply, and she knew God loved her, but she had an ache, a desire. And God saw that. Each year she and her husband trekked to worship, and she wailed & pleaded for a child. And, then, she did what many of us would have thought was crazy: she promised to release him back to God… If only He would give her a child, she would let that child go into the service of God.

God used that time to bring Hannah closer to Himself, and He used the child she wasn’t supposed to be able to have.

That child was Samuel, and He did great things for God. He played a great role in the tales of the Old Testament, and the only reason he was there was because Hannah saw the hope & the beauty in the waiting. And, she promised the gift she patiently waited for to God.

(1 Samuel 1-3)

I’m not as good at the waiting as Hannah was. I lose heart along the way, and give up for a while. I only offer up half-hearted prayers sometimes, because I sometimes lose faith that maybe God will grant the desire.

 

But, even in the waiting, we can be certain that He is with us. He is in the tension, in the questions, and in the doubts as much as he is in the peace, in the answers, and in the confidence.

So, now, it’s just about learning to live at peace in the waiting… Trusting that no matter what, He is always with us.

“I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking…I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”
– 1 Samuel 15-16

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(And, this ties in to what I am going to write about tomorrow: one of my favorite women in the Bible, who spent so much time waiting that she almost missed the beauty God sent in the waiting.)