Waiting

This weekend Clay and I headed up to Wisconsin to see Alissa and Nathan. On the drive up I decided to read the daily devotional "Our Daily Bread." I used to like to read the Methodist version "The Upper Room" and this is very similar. I carry the current copy in my purse under the intention that I will read each day's entry at work while I eat my breakfast. However, I must admit I haven't read it in days (maybe even weeks.) Reading Friday's entry I was moved. I even reread it again and then read it aloud to Clay. I intended at that moment to blog on it since I was so moved. We returned home this afternoon and I got a note from my mother-in-law. She too reads the devotional and made a copy of that same entry from Friday to send to me. She wrote a note that said she thought of me when she read it.

It is entitled "Waiting."

Psalm 70:1 Make haste to help me, O Lord!

"Make haste to help me, O Lord!" the psalmist David prayed. Like him, we don't like to wait. We dislike the long lines at supermarket checkout counters, and the traffic jams downtown and around shopping malls. We hate to wait at the bank or at a restaurant.
And then there are the harder waits: the childless couple waiting for a child; a single person waiting for marriage; an addict waiting for deliverance; a spouse waiting for a kind and gentle word; a worried patient waiting for a diagnosis from a doctor.
What we wait for, however, is far less important than what God is doing while we wait. In such times He works in us to develop those hard-to-achieve spiritual virtues of meekness, kindness, and patience with others. .But more important, we learn to lean on God alone and to "rejoice and be glad" in HIM.
FB Meyer said "What a chapter might be written of God's delays! It is a mystery of the art of educating human spirits to the finest temper of which they are capable. What searchings of heart, what analyzings of motives, what testings of the word of God, what upliftings of the soul...All these are associated with those weary days of waiting, which are, nevertheless, big with spiritual destiny."

God's direction: Be still, my child and know that I am God!
Wait thou patiently- I know the path you trod.
So falter not, nor fear, nor think to run and hide.
For I, thy hope and strength, am waiting by thy side.

Thought for the day: God stretches our patience to enlarge our soul.

Darn those "Harder waits." I struggle with the sentence "What we wait for, however, is far less important than what God is doing while we wait." I do not understand his plan (not that I should understand), but I fear the longer my WAITING the more my faith will be tested. To me a child is the most important thing to a mother and something I want to know. Maybe it is a test of my patience, or my virtues God is looking to strengthen and improve to help me in my journey ahead in life. I may never have any answers so I must repeat the direction of God over again and allow my path to unfold. I am ready to enlarge my soul and stretch my patience as I move forward. I know that my "Waiting" has only begun. My journey of 1,000 steps starts with just this 1.