Hi Friends,
Happy New Year! Starting a new year is supposed to be filled with hope and promise and looking forward to the new things God will do. But what about those things that you've waited and waited and waited for, the things you've been praying for, that still haven't happened and remain beyond your grasp?
What does it look it like to keep waiting in faith when it's a new year and God is still saying, "Not yet. Not quite yet"?
Here's an excerpt from
Waiting for Wonder that I hope will encourage you in the still-not-yet places of life:
Who is this God who tells us we still must wait?
He is the
God of just a little longer.
He is the
God of more.
He is the
God who loves us enough to make us wait longer to give us more.
I ponder
this strange dichotomy as I think of my life, and Sarah’s, and the story of
Lazarus in John 11. Jesus’ good friends from Bethany, Mary and Martha, sent him
word saying, “Lord, the one whom you love is ill” (John 11:3). Jesus received
their message in plenty of time. Plus he’d already shown that he could heal
from a distance, with just a word. But he didn’t say that word. And he didn’t start
for Bethany. Instead, John tells us, “Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and
Lazarus. When he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed where he was” (John
11:5-6). He stayed for two whole days. He stayed long enough for Lazarus to die
without him.
What?
Jesus loved
them, so he waited? He waited so that Lazarus died?
That
doesn’t seem like love. Yet it is.
We, of
course, know the rest of the story. Jesus returned to the sisters when Lazarus
was in the grave. The one who was both their friend and the God of all the
universe wept with Mary and showed Martha a deeper understanding of
resurrection. And he showed them himself in a way they had never seen before.
He told them, “I am the resurrection and the life” and revealed what that meant
by raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11:25).
He made
them wait. He gave them more.
They wanted
healing. He gave them life.
He loved
them, so he waited.
He loves
us, and so he waits, just a little longer. And in waiting, he gives us more.
Because in the wait, God is not cruel but is working. He is preparing us for
the promise. He is freeing us, and he is freeing the ones we love. He waits
that we may be set free.
So when God
asks us to still wait when it seems the consequences are grave, when he says “Not
yet, not quite yet,” remember the power of
resurrection, of new life. Remember that he waits because he loves us.
He is the
God of more than we prayed for, more than we hoped, more than we even knew we
needed.
Wait for
the God of more.
If the Lord Jehovah
makes us wait, let us do so with our whole hearts;
for blessed are all
they that wait for Him. He is worth waiting for.
The waiting itself is
beneficial to us: it tries faith, exercises patience,
trains submission,
and endears the blessing when it comes.
--Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David
