{"id":1653,"date":"2017-09-08T15:34:30","date_gmt":"2017-09-08T15:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.wordpress.com\/?p=1653"},"modified":"2017-09-08T15:34:30","modified_gmt":"2017-09-08T15:34:30","slug":"waiting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/?p=1653","title":{"rendered":"Waiting"},"content":{"rendered":"

We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;\u00a0<\/span>perseverance, character; and character, hope.<\/span> \u00a0<\/sup>And hope does not put us to shame, because God\u2019s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Romans 5:4-5<\/span><\/p>\n

God lets us wait, not to punish us, not because He has forgotten us, but because our waiting is the crucible He uses to purify our hope for Him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dan Allender<\/span><\/p>\n

The American lifestyle does not affirm the value of waiting. \u00a0If anything, it trains us to avoid it whenever possible. \u00a0We “drive through” restaurants to get food, never even getting out of our cars. \u00a0We binge watch TV on Netflix one episode after another without commercials. \u00a0 We buy into Amazon prime so we can have our purchases shipped in a few days. \u00a0We text and email. \u00a0Hardly anyone hand writes a letter anymore. \u00a0So much in our world is geared to give it to us now. \u00a0“Now” is a hot commodity.<\/p>\n

This makes it easy to assume that waiting is a negative thing. \u00a0It feels very passive, but to the Lord, active, faith filled waiting, is saying, “I trust You.” \u00a0It is worship, praise and affection directed at the One on whom we wait. \u00a0When we resist or avoid waiting, it is often because it feels like nothing is happening or it is not happening fast enough. \u00a0What we don’t understand is that waiting is a state of mind and heart that He calls us to, not something that happens because God is silent, absent or uninvolved. \u00a0The wait for what we need or desire is an ordained time that He uses to bring us to maturity. \u00a0The Bible is full of stories where God’s people were made to wait: \u00a0Abraham and Sarah waited a very long time for a child. \u00a0Joseph endure years as a slave before he was raised up to a position of great power. \u00a0He waited longer for reconciliation with the brothers who betrayed him. \u00a0The righteous Job was subjected to a period of confusing heartache, loss and suffering. \u00a0Simeon waited for the “consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25), the birth of the Messiah. \u00a0These are not stories of God’s absence but of His faithfulness and His power to fulfill His promises.<\/p>\n

There are also times when we forget that we are waiting because the longing, disappointment and pain that comes during the wait distracts us. \u00a0It consumes our attention and if we are there for long, in the ache and pain, doubt can creep in and then the fear that we will never have what we long for is added to our pain. \u00a0We think we have been forgotten and abandoned. \u00a0Intentional waiting on the Lord requires us to keep our focus on the His’s faithfulness, not our circumstance. \u00a0When we wait on the Lord we affirm our confidence in Him and His ongoing love. \u00a0This active faith actually welcomes and cooperates with His work (1Thess 2:13).<\/p>\n

Failure to wait reveals something else: \u00a0our own efforts to work outside the providence of God to get what we want. \u00a0I’ll go into that more next week.<\/p>\n

Peace and patience to all of you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;\u00a0perseverance, character; and character, hope. \u00a0And hope does not put us to shame, because God\u2019s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Romans 5:4-5 God lets us wait, not to punish us, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperricherfuller.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}