If you’ve worn high heels, you’ve done it. You know how it is once your shoes have hit the expiration hour. After standing in the bliss of praise and worship your soul awakens to the reality that your soles hurt and that what could have been a full day in those beautiful shoes is cut down to another hour or two at best! And what about when you have to wait in line while your feet hurt? Oh, you really play the shifting game then. The balls of your feet begin to sting. And here you go…..left, right (ouch, no that hurts!), left, left, left, right, left. Okay, now a little time on the back of the heels, and then back to left, right, left…. While you converse or wait, you continue to shift your weight wondering if anyone notices. One thing about having had your feet hurt, you can identify someone else whose feet hurt. You look and nod in sympathy— yeah, you know the walk, you know the stance, and you know the “shift”. We have become masters of shifting our weight when standing still hurts too badly.
Some of us need to apply the same principle to our faith and learn to shift our wait. How we wait… where we wait, begins to apply pressure to our “emotional space”- the same way our weight applies pressure to our feet when it’s hurting us to stand still. Some thoughts become strained, some hopes become worn; the same way gravity pushes our toes to the front of our shoes causing discomfort, there are times when our souls have a propensity to go forward; there’s an ache for a movement of some sort, even if just to get out of the painful space; yet it isn’t time to move, so we stand still and wait. Our concerns apply the same pressure to the “hopeful place” in our hearts. You feel pressure, stinging, aching pain and once it’s REALLY bad, you begin to lose some sensation.
Have you ever gotten to a point where you felt it may be easier to just not expect the change, to just not be excited, to just not believe at all? At last, it ‘s time to shift your WAIT. Don’t carry the weight of the wait. Cast it into the Father’s care. Hand it over to Him and each time you take it back, give it to Him again. You can’t do much with anything that is out of your control. Whatever your change is, it will happen SUDDENLY. One day you will wake up and it will be the day you won’t have to wait any longer!!! One day the wait will be over.
Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord. Psalm 27:14
Wait on the lord, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off, thou shall see it.
Psalm 37:34
I waited patiently on the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.
Psalm 40:1
Thee wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season.
Psalm 104:27
Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the lord, and he shall save thee. Proverbs 20:22
In your patience possess ye your souls. Luke 21:19
Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. James 5:10
And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness. 2 Peter 1:6
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9
Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. James 1:3-4