My wife and son and I drove to Branson, Missouri today for a long weekend. One of my daughters is working here this summer, so we’ll get to visit her and have some fun at a water park and Silver Dollar City.
After dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack tonight, we were driving back to our cabin when we came to a traffic light. The light was red and there were two vehicles in front of us. Very few cars were on the road that had the green light. So we sat there and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited.
It was one of the longest red lights I’ve ever waited for. Maybe the longest. Apparently, it was also one of the longest for the two cars in front of me because they finally just went through the red light. I can’t blame them because I would have done it too, except that right after they went through it, the light turned green and I was able to go.
It made me wonder how often we get impatient waiting for God to answer a prayer, open a door, give a direction or meet a need we have. And because we’re impatient, we go before we should. We take matters into our own hands. We make a decision before we’ve heard from God.
One of the most difficult things we’ll ever do is wait for God. We don’t like to wait. We want to know now. We want our need met now. We want to see how things will work out now.
We don’t want to wait, but quite often, God requires waiting. It’s just how He works, so we might as well learn how to do it well.
When we find ourselves in a season of waiting, we need to remember that God is always good, He’s always faithful, He alone is all-powerful and He never stops loving us. It’s so important to be reminded of these truths. If we forget them, then we will become impatient and possibly make decisions apart from God’s best for us.
Remember that because He is good, He cannot even think a wrong thought toward us. He cannot even consider doing anything that isn’t best for us.
But if we doubt His goodness or His love for us or His faithfulness to His promises, then we will naturally find it difficult to wait for Him.
Are you needing to wait right now?
If you’re wondering what God is up to and why He won’t just do something, if you’re impatient to the point of moving ahead without God’s clear direction, then spend some time meditating on this passage from Psalm 37:3-7. Let His word saturate your mind. Let it bring calm to your heart.
Trust in the LORD and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him and he will do this:
He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.
You will never go wrong if your goal is to trust Him, delight in Him, commit your way to Him and wait patiently for Him, because He will NEVER fail you.