By Pastor Kim Swenson
There are many things in life that we struggle with. I am sure we could come up with quite a list if we were to poll all of us regarding our own greatest struggles. I don’t know about you, but I find that one of the hardest things for me is to WAIT. I especially find it hard when I am waiting for something that is unknown. You go to the doctor and he says, “We see something that doesn’t look right. It will take a couple of weeks to get the report back.” Or, “Our next opening is 4 months from now.” Another struggle for me is when something doesn’t feel right but I don’t know why or what is going on. Waiting can be hard.
We are reminded from the scriptures that God is outside of time. For God, 1000 years are like one day, so that means if I wait for a whole year, it is just a few seconds to God. No wonder he says, “for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Perspective is so important because we think its reality, but maybe not. Perhaps we should be a lot more suspicious of our own perspectives especially when they turn us to question God and his care for us.
I am reminded of Saul’s final mistake that cost him his position as King. He was awaiting the prophet to come and sacrifice and thus acknowledge God before going into battle. The only problem is that Samuel didn’t show up and things were getting tense, and so Saul took things into his own hands, did his own sacrifice, and just as he finished, Samuel showed up. It may seem like a small thing, but it wasn’t. It was a statement to God that said, “You can’t be trusted to be faithful, and so I am taking over here.” Waiting sends a message to God which affirms both our trust and dependence upon him which is what he desires from his people. That means that how we WAIT is critical in our walk with God.
As we head into this next season, we continue to WAIT upon God for his working and his timing for us. Being on the search team, I know we are certainly learning this lesson and being forced to abandon ourselves to his timing believing that he is working out things in his time, not ours. Many things have taken “too long” from our perspective but as we head into this next season, we are all being called to “wait” upon him and he will accomplish his purposes in his way and in his time. In the end, we often find it was worth the wait.