I think we all have seasons where we don’t understand what is happening. Something in our life is not going the right way, and no matter how much we pray, it just isn’t happening. We can be down on our knees begging God to show us what we are waiting for, or we can be throwing our fists in the air angry at why He has not provided answers.
I’ve been there.
I’m still there.
Continue reading Holding On in the Midst of Waiting
I think it’s safe to say that most of us, if not all of us, had a dream of what we would be when we were older. A nurse? A firefighter? A princess? A footballer? My dream was that I would be a teacher. I use to sit in my room and pretend that I was teaching my teddies, and sometimes I even roped my brother into playing!
For years I had this longing that I wanted to help other children to fulfill their potential. I completed pre-teaching courses at college and did a number of work experiences at local schools. I enjoyed every minute of it and I passed with flying colours.
My dream didn’t quite turn out as I had planned.
I only just got through college with my A-Levels and I never went to University. The government changed the way that University fees were to be paid, so it was just too much for me to even consider. So, yes, I wasn’t even going to get a degree! Trying to sort out what I was going to do with my life was hard, especially when I didn’t have a degree. I found the options open to me very limiting.
I decided to take a year out to do some voluntary work and to try and get some idea of what I wanted to do with my life. It was only by chance that I ended up working with the Church Army in one of their Volunteer programmes, and I moved to London. Now, 17 years later, I have a lovely family with a wonderful husband and three gorgeous children.
What about the dream?
Maybe, some of us still have that dream though? What do we do? I think that there is only two options we can do. We can either do something about it, plan out how we can live our dream and go for it. Or, we can sit here and accept what has happened. Believe me, I have planned out what I wanted to do…and started it…but it’s just not going anywhere. I’m not the type of person either to sit around and accept things.
So, maybe there is a third option?
Maybe, it’s not my dream that I should be following. Maybe, this is God’s dream and God’s plan.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. Isaiah 55:8
What God wants with me and what He wants me to achieve is probably, and most likely, different to what I would like to do.
Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. Proverbs 19:21
It’s hard to keep this in mind as a positive perspective though when situations don’t go as well. Especially when family and friends are gone, homes are lost, dreams are shattered…the list goes on.
How do you keep going in the work you are doing then?
I keep this in my mind…
Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus Philippians 1:6
God has started something in our lives, and He’s not about to stop now. Our life is not over until He says it’s over, despite of how we may feel and no matter what we are going through. Our best days are not what has happened in the past. With God, our greatest days are yet to come!
God has started something in our lives, and He's not about to stop now. Click To Tweet Our best days are not what has happened in the past. With God, our greatest days are yet to come! Click To TweetWherever God leads us, He will provide for us, and He will meet our needs. We just need to remember that it’s not the things that matter — our job, our house, or what we achieve. We are God’s product, and we are made up of the moments that made an impact for God’s Kingdom – the moments that we are going through now! Hang in there. Your work that you are doing now is in God’s mighty plan.
Something to think about…
Are you in a place where you feel you shouldn’t be? Try and keep in your mind that it may not be for our benefit why we are there. It may be that we are impacting someone else’s lives without realising, and it will be for a greater good…God’s amazing plan!
Prayer
Lord, I have no idea what you have planned for my life right now and what work you want me to do to fulfill your bigger picture. I ask that you send your Holy Spirit to fill me with strength to help me through the times when I find it hard to see what your plan may be. Help me to realise that whatever is happening, it is for your greater good. Amen
I originally wrote this post as a response to the Five Minute Friday word prompt “work”. Click here to see what other people wrote when they were prompted with this word.
I couldn’t stop at five minutes though as this topic is just so close to my heart at the moment. The waiting period that you go through is heart wrenching at times, but I do believe that what we go through now is part of the bigger picture later on.
You are reading a Five Minute Friday word prompt. This is hosted by Kate Motaung and is where a group of people write about a given word for that week. This week the word is “define”.
To define is to give something its true meaning, which would hopefully make it more clearer for you. Hopefully! Defining something also creates boundaries, something that is clearly set out.
Sometimes we do this with our walk with God. We want God to clearly define the path that we walk on. We want Him to specify exactly what our lives mean, where are we heading to and how we are going to get there.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” – Proverbs 3:5
God doesn’t always clearly define what we are to be doing on this earth though. Well, He doesn’t define it in the way that we want Him to, and waiting around for things to become just that little bit clearer is really hard.
However, if we trust in what God is going to do for us, and not trust in our own thoughts and feelings (which often mislead us down the wrong path anyway) then He will define what our path is to be.
I am sooooo not good at this Christianity lark! I keep stuffing it up. Wouldn’t it just be easier just to do this all on my own anyway? I mean, how hard is it…This life business? Seriously? Why do I need God in my life? There are plenty of people out there that seem to get on just fine without Him, and yet I struggle. I don’t really feel Him that much anyway, so I might as well be on my own…
“Oh my word”, I can hear you say! Are you shocked that I am writing this? Should I be writing this? I mean, aren’t us Christians meant to show how easy life is once we have Jesus in our lives?
Or, are you nodding your head, with your hands in the air saying “yeah, me too, I getchya!” Are you one of these people that’s been there, done that and got the holes in your jeans for the amount of times that you’ve been on your knees begging for His mercy to start over again?
Do you know what though? Yeah, life isn’t easy. In fact, life is damn hard at times! So hard that it goes through my mind if all this is worth it one day. All the struggles we have in life…
death…
illness…
money…
kids…
…just to name a few! I’m sure that you could add a few more to the list.
Wouldn’t it be nice though if life was just that little bit easier? Answer me honestly. When you’re going through each day in pain and not knowing what is causing it…or you barely have the energy to play with your kids properly…or you are worried about when the next pay check is going to come in and whether you have enough to get you through the next day.
Wouldn’t it be nice if all this would just go away? Is God really here anyway in all of our struggles? When I am facing these hard seasons, this is what I honestly think. How can God let me go through the situations that I experience. Does He really care about me?
A friend recently gave me some encouragement at a time when I needed it…at a time when I still need it…
“I just want to encourage you that just because you are in a hard season right now, it doesn’t mean God is absent. God’s love “feels” more intimate when things are going well, that’s true, but our circumstances aren’t an indicator for God’s love in the same way our feelings aren’t always telling us the truth.”
I want to encourage you right now too, just like I was encouraged. In answer to my question, “what do you do if you don’t feel God?” Hang in there.
If you feel like your faith is fading, God is there and He will remain faithful towards you. Although we may change our commitment towards Him from time to time, His commitment to us will never change.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I got out of the car one morning. With my hands full of shopping, there he was perched on my fence. I had to get a picture, and I had to do it quickly. Who knows how long he was going to be there for. I’m fumbling around for my phone in my pocket, juggling my keys as quiet as I can be so not to scare him away, whilst I had shopping in the other hand. I forgot to bring a plastic bag with me when I went shopping, so yes, my hands were a little bit full. No, I didn’t buy a bag either, to save me all this stress. He stayed there though for me to make one shot…
He got me thinking though. That little robin has no worries, but yet God provides for him. Matthew chapter 6 v 26 says this…
Me? Valuable? I am in a waiting season at the moment and it has left me feeling really inadequate. It’s like I don’t quite reach the mark and I don’t fit in with other people around me. I am sitting here thinking that I have so much that I want to give, but I feel like I am not good enough. I look at other people and see where they are in their lives and what they have achieved to do…what they are achieving. They are doing what God has called them to do and they are doing it so well. And yet, I am still waiting. Am I not good enough to do Gods work? If I am, then what is the wait for?
I know that God has His plans and that everything happens in His time. I know that! I am just so flippin’ impatient. I feel like a little child that is waiting for that special desert. I can see all the good things that will happen, but I can’t have any of it until I have sat through dinner and taken the time to eat and savour everything that is on my plate. But, like that little girl, I just want that sweet thing now.
I know that God is teaching me something at the moment. With the help of a book called “Rhythms Of Rest” by Shelly Miller, I am learning that spending time with God is giving me moments where my heart is open to what He wants to show me. What He wants to teach me. This book is not out to the public yet, and God has been very good to me in giving me the opportunity to be part of a fabulous launch team. I am learning that even just spending 5 minutes with Him helps me to bring everything back into focus.
If making rest a rhythm in your life sounds like something you need, then come and take a look at Shelly’s website to find further information. Although the book is not out yet, you can pre-order it at Amazon by clicking here.
