Motivation Monday - When You Are Waiting For Something New
“Sometimes we think waiting is a noun—a thing, a static, unmoving burden. It sits on us heavily. We wait, we wait some more, with fear and dread that what we’re waiting for is never going to happen because we’ve waited so long and it still hasn’t happened. Then we lose hope and doubt that anything will ever change.
The truth is that waiting is a verb—an active, exciting verb, full of energy, hope, and longing.
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With so much uncertainty in recent months, many of you may be feeling like it’s time for a win. A big win. Something that brings hope back into the narrative and shines a light on the horizon. Something that calls you to move forward into the future. I know that personally and on behalf of the Gather movement, I have been praying for a big win this year. I have been praying for genesis moments, resurrection moments, moments of new beginnings rising up from all that has had to die.
I fear there are two voices in my soul, each vying for its truth. One that radiates positivity and believes all will be well and God is still on the throne. I want to believe. I really do. The other voice, the nemesis, is cynical, pessimistic, not believing that the future holds the possibility of new genesis moments despite the current cultural uncertainty.
And so I wrestle. And I wait.
How about you? Are you wrestling? Are you waiting? Or have pieces of your soul started to let despair creep in, while you project a fake smile on the outside?
What’s happening while you are waiting? God is at work. Do you believe it?
In terms of waiting, I am not sure any woman that ever lived had to wait as long as Sarah, Abraham’s whose story we read in Genesis 18-21, to have a child. Ninety-three years? That is a long wait! How much despair could have grown in her soul over all that time? We are having a hard time waiting days and weeks and months and years for anxiety to come to an end and a world at war to experience peace. Waiting is hard.
We might well ask what God is doing while we are waiting.
What was God doing while Sarah was waiting for the child promised to her and Abraham? God was at work. Every minute, every hour. And He is at work every minute, every hour in your situation.
God worked in Sarah’s situation, before, during and after her waiting time.
And He is working in yours.
• He was redeeming the irreversible. He protected Hagar, wrongly manipulated by Sarah to conceive a child with Abraham. God delivers on the lineage He promised through Isaac—the
lineage through which Christ would come.
• He was reuniting the irreconcilable. Abraham and Sarah united and she conceived. They had to work through a lot of mistrust in their marriage but God brought them together.
• He was restoring the irreplaceable. God provided a lamb as a sacrifice for Isaac when Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his promised son on the altar.
God wants us to experience the power of waiting. Sue Monk Kidd said, “Waiting is the yeasting of the human soul.”
Sometimes we think waiting is a noun—a thing, a static, unmoving burden. It sits on us heavily. We wait, we wait some more, with fear and dread that what we’re waiting for is never going to happen because we’ve waited so long and it still hasn’t happened. Then we lose hope and doubt that anything will ever change.
The truth is that waiting is a verb—an active, exciting verb, full of energy, hope, and longing.
There are two parts to it.
Part one is bridling back—to hold on to the reins; if you’re racing too fast to get to the finish line, you’ll run out of steam. Good jockeys know this when racing horses; they pace themselves. They have to bridle back the reins so they can make the sprint near the finish line.
This kind of waiting is intentional. You don’t want to get where you need to go too fast, because it’s in the waiting that the race is won.
Part two of waiting is to leaning forward—leaning into the future and anticipating
that something amazing is going to happen. It means to be eagerly impatient, expectant,
to imagine and hope for, to look ahead for, to see coming, to grasp whatever is around the turn.
Why does God wait so long for His promises and purposes to be fulfilled?
In the waiting, God is both bridling back and leaning forward.
He knows we shouldn’t speed up the process because we’ll run out of energy for the final sprint. At the same time, He’s teaching us to lean forward in anticipation that we’ll cross that finish line and finish well.
Would you trust that on God’s watch, all will keep moving as it should? Despite the despair, the evil, the miscommunication, the unsettling, God is still on the watch. Next time you ask, “what are you waiting for, God?”, remember that God is:
Redeeming the irreversible
Reuniting the irreconcilable
Restoring the irreplaceable.
He knows the beginning, middle and the end of every season of your life, and will carry you into you tomorrow, when you have given up strength to get there yourself. But never give up hope. Keep waiting. Bridle back and lean in. There is something new on the horizon. You are on the threshold of genesis moments ready to be revealed. We are breathless with anticipation at Gather for all desires to do for His daughters across the nation. Watch for it. Wait for it. It’s coming.
“Lord, create a genesis week from the chaos of my life.” Psalm 51:7
I believe in you.
Cathie