To Wait... Then Wait Some More

 I began the year with high hopes: things just seemed to be coming together in my life in ways that made me step back and say, God is good. Confirmations were everywhere. Little miracles just were happening left and right and suddenly, I was making plans and holding out cautious but deep optimism for what was coming. Everything just felt right. I knew it. Maybe your year started out this way, too. 

But then, things ground to a halt... or so it appeared. An opportunity fell through and they got back to me and said that the interest in the project just wasn't there. On to the next... 

Then another opportunity, which seemed just a month ago, to be so very promising and certain, then got delayed as the contact for it ceased communication for some unknown reason and left the others involved with no other choice but to slow down the project and take the long term approach. Maybe at some later time... 

In the span of just a couple weeks, everything that had felt like it had so much traction now felt like one giant, hard no. And, in its place, I was being flooded with more bad news of friends failed court outcomes, divorces, family drama, unknowns, health crisis. The temporary liberation of feeling like, for once, I had some open doors to walk through gave way to the closed and locked yet again. And I couldn't help but ask God why. 

I've journeyed with Him long enough now to know that His delays or His denials always give way to a better yes, so I felt peace and trust even in the face of these sudden changes and shut doors. Yet I also wondered what God was doing but even opening them up to me in the first place. Was He setting me up for a letdown? Was He trying to give me false hope? Did He intentionally mislead me? Did I hear from Him wrong? 

Then, I felt something in my spirit say...

What if I did this to simply show you that I can? What if I allowed these things just so you could know that I see you and hear your prayers? What if this isn't about the actual thing at all but about you knowing that I intimately know you and I can move heaven and earth to get to you? 

Suddenly, my questioning gave way to deeper faith as I saw that, whether or not these things happen in the way, time, or place that I envisioned is not the point. What is the point is that a Sovereign God knows your story. He knows your life. He hears your prayers and your cries for certain things. He isn't deaf or blind to what we go through. It all matters to Him because He knows it matters to us. And sometimes, He lets things happen so we'll see His hand and know that He can do it. He is fully capable in every way. 

In this crazy world we live in, it can be easy to forget, in our humanness, the ability of God. The fact that God is able to do things "above all that we ask or think" can sometimes get lost on us or taken for granted. We can stop believing Him for big answers and outcomes. We can stop praying big prayers because we think some things are just too hard or large for even Him to handle. And there are moments when He has to allow something to go on that shakes us out of our unbelief and reminds us, Oh yeah... He's got this! 

While I'm still hoping that one or two of these opportunities come to fruition in their own time and manner, I'm also taking where life is at right now as a win because so far, in this year, God's used it to just remind me that He knows about all of it - and that's enough. I don't have to see the end of the story. I don't have to insist on a particular result. I can keep being faithful and showing up in my life because God is the Author of how it ends. 

Sometimes life is about waiting... and then waiting some more. I've spent many years waiting on some things that I feel God has promised to fulfill and, of late, I'm growing weary of waiting...and asking... and waiting again. And just when it looked like some things might finally come together, it all slowed up once more and now I'm back to waiting again. I have to be okay with that. And you do also when it comes to certain delays or denials in your own life. God has the right to accelerate or pause the story whenever and however He wills. The important part is that we stay in the story with Him. We know He's never going to abandon us on the journey. We just need to be certain that we don't abandon Him just because we failed to receive what we desired from Him.