The Problem with Waiting

I listened to a sermon yesterday from Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN. It was titled "Shattered Dreams". Please listen to it, but if you don't, here are some of the points that really impacted me.

All of us have had expectations and dreams for our lives. But there are also things in our lives that we don't expect to happen; divorce by the time you're 40, cancer, losing a loved one, and so many other life circumstances that we would never would have envisioned for ourselves. But what we so often overlook is that God is bigger than our circumstances.

There are times in our lives that God will allow suffering, pain, and crisis in order to detach hope from other things (a marriage, a job, a child, etc.) and attach himself. Read that last sentence again. So often, I put my hope into temporary, earthly things, even if I see them as good. God calls us to himself through these circumstances. We need to stop looking at our "shattered dreams" as if God is doing something to us, but that He is doing something through us.

Usually, we are frustrated with these circumstances because we are forced to wait on God to show up. We don't like waiting because it reminds us that we are powerless. oh. my. goodness. It's like a light bulb went off when I heard that. When I'm waiting in traffic, there's nothing I can do to move the cars away. When I'm waiting on a phone call from a friend, I cannot force that person to pick up the phone and call me. When I will have to wait to hear back from grad schools, I have no control over the decision if I get in or not. When you are waiting, there is nothing you can do--you have no power over the situation.

But here's the thing. I struggle the most with my relationship with God when I'm waiting on something in my life. I am frustrated with Him, I get angry, asking Him "Why now?" or "Why not now?" or "Why me?" It's never that I question His power, but instead that I doubt His timing. During my Christian life, I can only remember a time or two that I questioned if I could trust God. Instead, I have thought hundreds of times if I could wait and trust His timing though. But God tells us to wait. To trust in Him and wait through these circumstances.

Wait on the Lord; Be strong and take heart and wait on the Lord.--Psalm 27:14

I wait for you, O LORD; you will answer, O Lord my God.--Psalm 38:15

I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob. I will put my trust in him.--Isaiah 8:17

But you must return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always.--Hosea 12:6

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.--Romans 8:25

PS--Mini confession. I usually skim over the scripture that people put in blogs. So if you're like me, I'm calling you out--go back and read the scripture because it really does drive home the point on waiting and trusting in God.