Wait on the Lord

Sarah 9:54 AM 1 comment

**I wrote most of this 2 days ago but something came up and I wasn't able to finish so I finished it up today.

It's amazing (well, amazing isn't quite the right word. That usually implies something positive, while I'm trying to use it to explain my sheer stupidity) how I will think that I've learned something and of course, I forget it or I doubt what I've learned.

My last post was about seeking God and how if I truly seek Him, I'll find Him. Yet, as soon as I posted that, I went back to my doubting ways, questioning if God would really speak to me, wondering why He hadn't spoken to me when I was trying to seek Him, becoming angry, frustrated, and hopeless that He had given up on trying to speak to me.

Maybe though, it wasn't that He wasn't trying to speak to me. Maybe it's that I wasn't ready to listen.

Today has been quite a difficult day for me. I would go into detail about how awful it really felt but I've already annoyed myself all day with how bratty and just plain draining I've sounded, even to myself. Or maybe I should say especially to myself. Anyway, all day I was just feeling despondent. (which, unfortunately, is not a new feeling for me. I think it must be my thorn in the flesh. Or maybe it's just plain bondage that I have to be saved from. I'm still trying to figure it out.) I don't know if you've had days like these but when I have them I wonder what the point of my life is, I wonder how I'm significant, I wonder why everyone else never seems to have the problems I do, I wonder why God even bothered to create me because my life doesn't seem like it amounts to anything, especially since I'm in a new place and have pretty much no friends and am terrible at getting to know people. Life is just dull right now. I know it sounds rather ungrateful and like I said, bratty, but it's what I was struggling with. I just really wonder about all of those things. And though I've received answers about them on different occasions, I still have trouble remembering those answers. I guess I'm like the man in James, who looks in the mirror and then when he walks away, he immediately forgets what he saw. I do not want to be like that, which brings me to how God stepped in and continues to step in.

When I'm feeling like I explained up there, I do one of three things. I either 1.) Look around for something to distract me i.e. movies, internet, shows, food, people, etc., 2.) I claim to have Quiet time, yet I'm reading with preconceived notions and for a quick fix and if He doesn't answer right away, I give up or 3.) I seek solitude and go to the Word, not knowing what I'll find, but usually falling apart if not already broken. It's when I choose the third option that God speaks to me. I know I've said in previous posts, and previous journal entries, and previous conversations, that I truly have to seek Him to find Him, but I know now that it's never going to work just to read and expect Him to automatically say something to me or comfort me. I have to go in WAITING ON HIM TO SPEAK. I can't come on my own terms, saying "Hey God I'm here. Now speak. And it better be something new and exciting, otherwise I'm not going to listen or be satisfied." I don't actually think those exact words in my mind but it's essentially what I'm implying. If I'm not going to spend the quality time with Him that it takes and really seek to know IN HUMILITY what He wants to say to me (NOT just what I think He should say to me), how do I expect to receive what I need? He knows what I need!

This afternoon as I was reading several verses and crying in Books-A-Million (Yes, that's how pathetic I am. I go to Books-A-Million, by myself, and read and cry.) I could finally listen to what He was trying to say to me.

WAIT. Wait on the Lord.

I didn't have anything left to hang onto. I had lost all hope. I didn't know what to do. I reccently read a quote by C.S. Lewis that I thought explained the way God speaks to me.

"Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains."

I couldn't agree more. I always hear Him so much clearer when I'm in pain.

Way too often I come to Him on my terms, just impatiently expecting Him to speak right away or move immediately in my life. But that's not how He works. When will I finally learn? How many times do I have to hear it until it sticks?? Praise God though, that He reminded me. That's what makes me grateful and scared all at the same time. How God shows me what I need when I need it, yet how easy it is to forget what He shows me. I don't want to forget. I want to remember that those who wait (hope) on the Lord will find new strength. He shows up when I wait expectantly, yet in humility for Him.

I think that's the key. Humility. It's pride that keeps me thinking that I can come to Him flippantly and half believing Him. It's pride that says His grace isn't enough to cover what I've done. It's pride that won't receive forgiveness for messing up, yet again. He doesn't reward that. He rewards those who trust in Him, He rewards those who cry to Him. He saves those who are completely broken. I wish that it didn't take being completely overwhelmed and broken for me to come to Him with the right attitude. But the joy and rest that my soul finds after I've been broken and refreshed by His love is indescribable.

I tend to hold Him at arms length because I know that I'm imperfect and I know that when I don't believe His promises or am not satisfied with the life He's blessed me with or I won't continue to seek Him, I'm hurting Him. I hate the thought of hurting Him. I hate messing up more than anything else because I want so badly to please Him. Why then, do I run from Him, when all He wants is me? When I get stuck on hating my imperfections and becoming hopeless that I'll ever change, I forget that that is why His love is so astounding. Because it's there just as much when we don't deserve it as when we think we do. My mind cannot even begin to wrap around that He loves me. There is nothing lovable about me! There is no reason why He should, yet He does. I don't understand Him or His ways and I wish that I didn't have to continually hurt Him but I'm so grateful that He is faithful to never leave me, to always draw me to Him.

I want a heart knowledge of His love. One that cannot be shaken by change. To know without a spec of doubt that through anything He'll never let me down and He will always love me and that His love will always be enough.