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WAITING

Janet Schultz

Nov 26, 2024

WAITING

Jeremiah 29:10-14 10 This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

Do you like waiting?  Waiting for something to happen, to hear the end of the story, for someone to show up?  Waiting in a long, slow moving line when you need you need to be somewhere?  We’ve all waited.  For something. I think waiting stinks, especially when I want something now. Jeremiah 29 includes a long letter dictated to Jeremiah by God and sent to the remnant of Israel that was living under the power of their captor, the mighty King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon.  Verses 10-14 includes the familiar verse “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” We’ve all heard this.  But the passage in its entirety tells us God is talking about seventy years! Now that is some waiting, is it not?  

The Lord also says in Jeremiah chapter 29 that while they are in exile, “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.  Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”  So, our personal waiting time can be an exile we create for ourselves.  We can exile ourselves from living the life God meant us to live.  We can worry, fret, cry, isolate ourselves and live in a misery stew that fills up our hearts and minds and grinds us to a halt.

I’ve been in frustrating seasons of waiting, seasons I didn’t go looking for but I was in them just the same. Sometimes I’ve allowed it to exile me into poor sleeping and eating, and letting it take over my mind and my time. I would say to God that I don’t understand why I’m going through this exercise, while allowing what I wanted to take over my mind and my outlook on things. I got stuck on what I wished would happen. The devil loves to see us all worked up and letting our waiting and doubt fill up the space that God should be occupying. That’s when he gets in and makes sure we remain miserable and tries to stifle our reaching out to God.

Deciding to surrender my situation to God cleared my mind and soul, making room for Him to let His plans unfold. When I turned to Him, I learned that something actually happens while nothing appears to be happening. Does that make sense? God uses waiting to change us. God wants us to follow him and put down our demanding selves - to calm the screaming child in us. One way he helps us do this is to say, “Wait.” That miserable, uncomfortable, sometimes painful state of silence is one of God’s most powerful tools to set us free. Free to dignify and glorify Him. Glory is in your situation, even if you can’t see it yet. It’s tough to do sometimes, but decide to choose to wait on God’s time. Wait on the Lord instead of running ahead of Him or bailing out on Him.  Listen to Him. Stay in your lane.  Stay when He says stay, go when He says go.  Be still and know that He is God. Choose trust and humility, even when, or especially when it’s tough and you want something now.  He loves you.  He’s with you.  He knows.

Janet Schultz

Braver Than Lions

©2024 by Braver Than Lions

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