Impatiently Waiting

                I am an impatient person. I find that when the Lord shows me He is going to do something in my life, I get excited and expect that it is going to happen the next day. But, over the years of being a Christian, I have found that this is not the case. Most times when the Lord promises a blessing over my life, it takes time to come to pass. Me, being the impatient person that I am, start to lose faith, doubt He ever spoke to me in the first place and end up being anxious and worried; and sometimes, even taking that matter into my own hands. I pray, He answers, and then I grow impatient when it doesn’t happen soon enough.

                When I looked up the word “impatient” in the dictionary, I read a nice little description of myself. Impatient means to not accept delay, to be restless in desire or expectation. It also means to be hasty or anxious. I am not one to accept delay. When I ask for a favor, I like to see results. I am a results driven kind of personality. But, the Lord recently showed me that my impatience was more than restlessness, or expecting results, it was a lack of trust in Him.

                “And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest?”  Luke 12:25-26

                We know that the Bible teaches us to be “anxious for nothing” (Philippians 4:6) but sometimes we want what we want when we want it. How many times have we prayed and prayed for something but had to wait years for the Lord to make it come to pass? We pray and we hear “wait” or “not time yet”. It is in these moments that I begin to grow impatient. I find myself wondering if I even heard from the Lord. Perhaps He did not say yes to my prayer, perhaps I heard what I wanted to hear. Maybe He wants me to do this first or maybe He needs me to take this one on myself. And we all know that taking it up and doing it on our own will lead to complete disaster!

                Jesus asks us why we worry about things when there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. Why are we anxious, why are we impatient, do we not trust God to make all things work together for our good? Do we trust Him enough to wait? Do we trust Him enough to be patient through the waiting? When I grow impatient, I begin to doubt. Impatience is the fruit of a heart that does not fully trust the Lord and His faithfulness.

              

  I saw this in me just the other day. As my husband and I were waiting to hear about whether the house was ours or not, I found myself growing impatient. I was positive that the Lord has given us His promise and that He had confirmed this was the path we were to take, but it seemed like it was not going to happen anytime soon. I felt like time was running out, and this caused me to waver in my faith. I began to worry, I began to wonder, I began to doubt and all of these fruits were born of my impatient heart.

                The bible tells us to be anxious for nothing, (Phil. 4:6) that we are to wait upon the Lord (Psalm 27:14). We are to trust in the Lord with all our heart. When we become impatient, waiting and trusting fly out the window and anxiousness and worry come and take roost. If I am trusting than I believe in Him, His timing, His purposes, His will, His ways. I believe that my God is able to do above and beyond all that I ask or think. But in His time, not mine. We are to believe and know that God is always in control. Nothing takes Him by surprise because He has known from the foundations of the world the very details of our lives. Nothing comes upon us by chance, we believe this- we believe that God is the great conductor of our lives, but when we have to wait, we become impatient and we begin to fall down in our faith, and we lose our foot hold on the truth, and the foundation we stand on becomes sand and we start to sink.

                The Lord has shown me that when I become impatient, I am losing my trust in who He is. I am focusing on the here and now instead of He who exists outside of time. Jesus asks us why we worry. Is there anything we can do about the situation that God the Father has not already covered? Can we make the situation better? Can we do anything about it? Can we make ourselves grow? No, we cannot, so why do we allow our impatient hearts to lead us into worry and doubt? We must, when impatience finds its way into our lives, we must lay it down and lean upon our God and Father once again.

                I sometimes forget that my God is not a genie who desires to give me everything I want when I want it. Our God loves us so much that sometimes waiting is what is best for us. We believe that there is a purpose and a reason behind everything that happens in our lives, because God is in complete control. There is a purpose and a reason behind why He asks us to wait, or why He does not answer our petitions right away. If we believe He is God of our lives then we must also believe that He is God of our circumstances and trust Him completely. I see the fruit of impatience in my heart many times, and I pray today that the Lord would help me to trust Him, to lean on Him and not on my own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). I pray that when my heart begins to grow anxious, that I would look to Him and His word and see that He is completely and utterly, always and forever in Sovereign control of every detail of my simple life. My impatient heart is a heart that does not trust in God. May the Lord God forgive me for my impatient heart, and may He receive the glory, honor and praise, through Jesus Christ my Lord, forever and ever. Amen and Amen.