Every great artist has a preferred medium. Vincent Van Gogh used oil paint. Michelangelo worked in marble. As for God, I’m learning that His medium of choice is wait. Waiting seems to be the way He works. We are even called to wait on our dreams.
As we wait, let’s remember the truth.
God doesn’t ignore our cries. He provides everything we need and leads us in ways we would never have planned. God never forsakes us, and He loves to bless us. Even when we don’t feel like these things are true, God is using this waiting season to prepare us for what He has planned. He trains us as we wait.
As Wendy Pope writes in Wait and See, our waiting elicits one of three responses:
- We continue to seek the Lord, work out our salvation, and tend to our sheep.
- We “help” God by manipulating circumstances to rush our desired outcome.
- Or we turn the object of our wait into an idol.
Honestly, I’m more likely to do 2 or 3.
I’ve got a dream I’m waiting on: to become a speaker. I want to speak the gospel of grace to self-reliant, accomplished women, to remind us that we have a God of amazing grace who loves us and who longs to rescue us from our do-more, try-hard life. But it takes time to be a speaker. Time spent starting a blog, refining my message, finding my tribe, and practicing my words. I’ve been speaking publicly since college and with every job I’ve ever held. And here I am, waiting to share God’s true truth.
I want to wait well, but how? As Pope explains, waiting well takes four skills.
1. Do what we know to do until we know something else to do.
Waiting well often looks like staying in the place God has put you with the people and resources He’s entrusted to you.David didn’t abandon his sheep in the pasture and ship his boxes to Jerusalem once Samuel anointed him king. He was chosen and then went back to doing what he had always done.
Ask for God to help you serve, love, and care for the pasture He has given you until He moves you a new direction. As I wait, I’m doing what I know to do (writing words, reaching out to churches) until God moves me.
2. We move when and where God asks us to move.
As Pope writes, “Waiting well means I remain open to God and allow Him to move me toward the future He has planned in His time.” Jonah didn’t wait well. God told him to preach to the Ninevehvites, but he ran away to Tarshish instead. (Jonah 1:3) This sentence makes me laugh because you can’t run away from God…and it’s not like God isn’t also in Tarshish. So God told him to move, but Jonah moved in the opposite direction, which we know didn’t work out well for him—hence the big fish.
When we struggle to move, let’s ask God to give us the strength and courage to do whatever He has asked us to do. As I wait, I’m moving by doing awkward (hello cold-calling + asking your friends for favors) and necessary tasks that lead me to my goal.
3. Allow God to grow your faith.
As we wait, it’s important to not only pursue the object of our wait, but also, to pursue the Person of our faith. We do this through time spent alone with Jesus in prayer and in the Word He gave us.
In Acts 16, the church grew in its faith because the people listened to Paul and Timothy preach, and they obeyed the decisions of the elders. What holds true for the church holds true for its people: we are strengthened when we listen to the truth and obey wise instruction.
Ask God to help you stay put in His truth, to give you the desire to pray, and to set aside time to praise Him. As I wait, I find talking to God about my dream refreshing and sweet. I feel like we’re a team: He knows my dream and I know that He’s the One behind the scenes figuring things for my good. I know when a speaking opportunity comes along, it was God who made it possible.
4. Refuse to let the object of our wait become an idol.
I can become obsessive about reaching goals. So when a goal is delayed, I do every work-around, manipulation, and hoop-jump that I can do to get it done. The object of my wait replaces the Person of my faith. Achiever-Friends, this cannot be. God wants us to know Him, to enjoy Him, and to experience His presence. But we cannot experience these truths if we’re obsessed with something else.
Ask God to worship and long for Him only. As I wait, I think often of when and where I will speak again, but mostly I just think about the God who loves me so that He’s even given me this dream in the first place. God loves us and can satisfy our hearts far more than the object of our wait ever will—even when what we’re waiting for is good.
So if God’s medium is wait, then the canvas upon which He works is love. Everything He does is for our good because He loves us so. As we wait, let’s remember that every purposeful brush stroke paints a beautiful picture. One we will have to wait to see.
