Are You Waiting on Something??

Are you waiting on something? Does it consume your thoughts or does it feel like it it taking forever to get here? Are you weary and sometimes wonder if you can keep going?

Oh friend I have so been there and I want to encourage you with something:

God's timing and God's direction are equally important!

Do you hear that? Read it again because sometimes I think we rely on God for direction and then we stop trusting Him for timing or we just go ahead and take that part into our own hands. So let's read it again so it can really click:

God's timing and God's direction are equally important!

So what now? Glad you asked. I will start with a little story and then give you a few steps. I am writing on this because it is fresh for me right now. On Friday I finished a graduate program that I started 10 YEARS AGO! Shortly after graduating from PT school with my masters, I started taking classes toward my doctorate at TWU. I was working full-time then and so I studied at night and went to class on set Fridays and Saturdays in Houston which was 3 hours from where I lived at the time. When Jack came along, I realized that I could not be a wife, a mother, a full-time PT, and a student. So I re-evaluated my priorities based on what I felt God was calling me to and I laid school down.

Three years ago God moved us to Houston! I started working part-time and my husband came to me and said that he thought with us living in Houston it was crazy for me not to finish the program. So I went back at the rate of 1-2 classes per semester. Then we got the referral for Ruthie and I knew the next year was unpredictable so I decided since I couldn't go to class then to just go ahead and complete my terminal project that is normally done at the end of the program. That enabled me to finish my classes this spring and summer.

Did you know that if I had not done that, I would have started losing hours because I would have crossed the 10-year mark. That brings me to my last point and then we will hit that "What do I do now" list.

God' s never late and I have never known Him to be early!

Why? Because, God's timing and God's direction are equally important. We can't appreciate that because we can't see the whole picture, but He can and that is why He is in control. Well, that and because He is God.

Ok now onto that list! So what do you do now?

1. You have to regularly give whatever it is you are waiting on back to God. This is a heart and prayer thing. Whether or not it requires steps is between you and God, but what I know is that when we try and align God's will under our timing, we often take it out of His hands. You have to give it back to Him.

2. You have to know that if you give it back to Him, He may not give it back. Sometimes the direction is more about the direction than the end. Does that make sense? Forgive the cheesy example, but if you have ever dated someone that you thought was "the one" and then they weren't but you can look back on that and say that God placed you in that relationship and taught you a lot through the process (direction), then you know this to be true. Sometimes it is more about what we learn from the process.

3. Align your priorities with His will not with your goals. If we do this, He will set our goals and priorities and we will see Him move around us. At that point, waiting becomes a little less difficult because our focus is not on "the thing" but on God's will again.

4. If you feel like God is still calling you to something, just keep taking steps one at a time. Oh I know how it feels to be weary and you may just want to claim #2 and walk away, but if God is still calling you to this thing, you can't. Yes, you may have to slow down if the pieces aren't coming together, but keep taking steps even if they are tiny ones. Those steps may be just not releasing the item from your prayer life but just not making it the sole focus. We don't have to know the end to keep taking steps. We just have to know that the same God who called us is the one in the process with us and He sees the whole picture!

Trust Him my friend! If you have anything to add to this, please feel free to add it in the comment section or let me know what you think. You are also welcome to leave your email if you want to dialogue more about this. I don't have all the answers, but I sure do have some experience on this one. Just read the Spring of '09 in this blog and you will see that. :)

Oh and she was so worth the wait!