Heart Tracks - For Those Who Wait

         Waiting comes hard to all of us.  Waiting in faith much harder still.  Our flesh is not built for waiting, its built for attaining, and the quicker the better.  Waiting on anything, especially upon Him, is impossible in the flesh, so it remains that it can only be done in the Spirit.

      I once read that the actual Hebrew translation of waiting was "to wrap oneself around God."  To literally be a part of Him, being so entwined with Him that someone looking upon us would not be able to tell where we end and He begins.  We are truly one with Him.  I think it is only in this way that we can truly "wait upon God."

     Mark 9:23 says "Everything is possible for him who believes."  This is a much quoted verse, and one that many people place their faith upon.  We take our "impossibilities to Him," and we quote this verse, and then determine that we will wait upon Him to make the impossible, possible.  The difficulty comes, and increases doublefold when we begin to ask, "How long must I wait?"  I know.  I have asked this question many times of Him.  Too many.  To my flesh, it seems that there is a "reasonable" amount of time that I should be expected to wait.  Like Peter's asking of Jesus just how many times was it acceptable for him to forgive, I ask Him how long is an acceptable waiting time until I either seize control of the situation and do something to bring about my deliverance, or worse, just give up, and either tell myself I never heard His promise in the first place, or worse, that He is not faithful and can't be trusted and depended upon.  We walk away, defeated, discouraged, and worst of all, not having attained not only the promise, but also the transforming Christlike character development that He had in view for us in all of it.  There is no better example in the Bible of this than in the life of Joseph, and the Father has used that life twice in the last week to speak to me on this great and deep meaning of what it is to wait upon God.

    Today, as I was reading that classic devotional Streams In The Desert, I came upon these words concerning Joseph's waiting upon the Lord.  "It was not the prison life with its hard beds and poor food that tried him, but the 'word of the Lord.' "  By this the writer meant that Joseph's great trying of his soul and spirit was the fact that his life as he was living it was a total contradiction to the promises God had given him so many years before.  A promise that he would be lifted up, yet here he was, sitting in a dark cell, totally cast down.  Everything about his life was a contradiction to what he'd been told by the Father.  Yet, the writer says, "He remembered God's words even when every step of his career made fulfillment seem more and more impossible."  Have we been there?  Are we there now?  I know what my answer is, what's yours?  Is all that is going on in your life, your job, marriage, family, ministry, seeming to be a complete contradiction to what you believed He has called you to, promised you?  Does the fulfillment of His promise seem to you to be more and more impossible by the day.  Nothing is changing.  Indeed, it seems to grow darker.  Others are blessed

(the cupbearer was released, Joseph remained in prison) but you seemingly, are not.  We feel forgotten, but could it be, we are being tried by His word, just as Joseph was?  And if we are being tried, what is happening in our hearts, our spirits?  What is taking place as concerns our character?  Is it coming forth as gold, or does it continue to give out only dross?  Hard questions, but only in being tried by His word do we come to the answers.
    Waiting will never grow easier for our flesh.  Only by wrapping ourselves around Him, and by faith and obedience, believing the word He has spoken to us, will we come into the full realization of what He has promised, but even in that, we must live not merely trusting in what He has promised, but trusting in Him.  One  translation renders those well known words of Job as "Though He slay me, yet I will wait for Him."  I want to live in such faith.  I want to trust with such trust.  When tried by His word, I want to be more and more gold, not more and more dross.  How about you?  As you're tried by His word, what is coming forth from your life?

Blessings,
Pastor O