You know when you walk away from an awesome conference with a thoughtfully-planned trinket and it ends up in the bottom of a bag or on a random shelf somewhere?
We all do this, right?
Unless we are intentional about keep these things as a token of memory, they so easily get lost in the shuffle and forgotten about.
I found this key today.
The conference was only two weeks ago, so I feel like I’m still in the grace period here.
We were told to take a key and pray that God would give us a word, something to define our next step of bold, obedient faith.
.
“Wait.”
.
I don’t know about you, but I feel like “wait” is very much the opposite of “step.” But when you have full fervor and readiness to leap, it takes obedience to stay put. Waiting is bold when all your heart tells you to do is go.
But it hurt.
Because earlier that day, all in one moment, I saw it all:
All I was not.
All I did not do.
All I did not have.
All I could not be.
This didn’t come from a place of pity. I knew full well all I was, all I did do, all I had, and all I could be. I wasn’t putting myself down.
I was just painfully aware of all that I wanted that was just out of reach.
.
See, a month before that, God also told me to wait. I learned to lean on Him and did my best to wait well, trusting that He’d come through.
I just really thought that, by that point, He’d have shown up already, in His natural way of manifesting Himself.
I wasn’t bitter that day.
But I was discouraged.
How could He keep me waiting so long? Wasn’t I already proving myself faithful? What was the purpose of waiting now?
And what was I even waiting for?
God has a way of teaching you things before you have to walk them. He had taught me hope. He taught me patience. Now I had to use what I learned.
.
.
I still can’t paint you a full picture here.
But I do know that I rarely tell my boys to wait to do what I’ve told them to do unless I know they need me for that task and I’m busy with something else that benefits them in the moment.
I never tell my boys to wait when they want to do something good just for the sake of making them wait.
I never make them wait in vain.
So what does that say about God?
