Waiting, AGAIN?!?!?!
Sometimes you just have to make a decision. There are times when you will wake up morning after morning and find the “situation” hasn’t changed. You’ve prayed, you’ve cried out, and believed every which way you know how, only to find that a NOT YET has slapped you and left your face stinging. And right at that moment you have to make a few decisions. You must DECIDE not to become frustrated. You must DECIDE to still believe God for what is best for you. You must DECIDE that you are still very blessed. Finally, you must DECIDE that God is STILL good despite this nagging, chewing, biting, stabbing “influence” that is pushing you to complain or throw in the towel altogether. This “influence” pushes you to stop believing God, and although few would care to admit it, it pushes you to question how good He really is. Well, He’s good enough to make you wait. I said to myself this morning: I’m still waiting, BUT God is still good and He’s sovereign, PERIOD. I trust His judgment. You say it: I trust His judgment.
Often times “Waiting” is that relative you hate to see coming when you’re in a rush to get somewhere. Every time you’ve got somewhere important to go, here he comes shuffling along. And it seems like he always picks the times when you don’t have a moment to spare. And it’s easy to become ESPECIALLY frustrated when he tries to come between you and your blessing. But since my Father keeps allowing him to come to my house, I’ve begun to question whether or not, it’s really him (Waiting) who is making me late.
I was trying to think of someone who could relate. And then I remembered and decided to call on my girl Hannah. I remembered how loooooong she endured Waiting’s visit with her, how much he used to bug her and how eventually she stopped talking about him and lived a life that exceeded the one she felt Waiting was making her late for. Each time I visit with her I learn something.
I walked away from our time together realizing that just like her, we all have a rival -an adversary; in a more contemporary vernacular, “haters”. Hannah had her husband’s love and a double portion of the meat. And her “hater”, Peninnah vexed her, teased her, poked fun at her and made her feel worthless, because she didn’t have children. Peninnah, his other wife (don’t ask) had all of his sons, yet he LOVED Hannah. And that woman had the nerve to make her feel badly about it. Why? Because even with all of their husband’s sons, she STILL wanted what only Hannah had. Unfortunately, while Hannah was loved, favored and received a double portion, she stirred in the place of discontentment. What a WASTE of time! I realized that for us, that (discontentment) is the door. Once you walk through it, it closes and camouflages with the walls, making it difficult to find it again and get out. Too many of us remain in the room of discontentment feeling bewildered, embittered and victimized. During my visit, I looked at ALL that Hannah had and wondered how her husband must have felt about not being able to please her. He even asked her one day, “Aren’t I more to you then ten sons?” Now, THAT made me think. It makes you wonder how the Father feels when we are rich with grace and blessings and yet walk around miserable and complaining about what we don’t have.
Your haters are under the influence of THE hater, your adversary. And we have to pray for them because they are merely being used when they cause us to demean our blessings, question God’s faithfulness and sit in a place of thanklessness. We must make up our minds not to belittle what we have. God has been too good for that! If we didn’t have something they wanted, they wouldn’t be “hatin’” ; spending their time making sure we don’t’ enjoy what and who is in our possession. That’s a trick of the enemy if I’ve ever seen one. We’ve been redeemed and he CAN’T be redeemed. Now do you understand why he’s angry? Instead of thinking about what we don’t have and what hasn’t happened yet, we should relish in what we do have and what is going well RIGHT NOW, because RIGHT NOW at this very moment God is on the throne and He is watching over everything that concerns us (Psalm 138:8).
Things changed for Hannah when she stopped asking for a son just to satisfy her insecurity, and started asking for one so that she could give God glory with him. She promised God that if He provided a son for her, she would give Him right back to Him to use as He pleases. God provided, she kept her word and God KEPT providing. Even after she released her son to the Father, she visited regularly and blessed him. And she would go home and conceive over and over again. She NEVER “beat God giving”.
While you are believing God for the manifestations of your heart’s desire, ask yourself these three questions:
- Are you presently thankful and appreciative?
- Are you willing to commit the blessing to God and His will?
- Can you promise not to abandon it? In other words, no matter how the blessing presents itself, it being from God, are you willing to cherish, cultivate and be faithful to it while it remains in the Lord’s care?
If you can’t surrender a “YES” to any of these three questions, you may have found the answer to why Waiting keeps coming to your house and visiting [too] long.
Storyline extracted from 1 Samuel
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