Waiting. Delighting.

[photo credit]

Earlier this week I was chatting with a friend. She asked me about my upcoming trip to Haiti. As I shared with her the minor and major details, I found myself saying, “This is different. It’s not something I was anxious about, or waited for. I truly believe that the Lord has seen my delight in Him and is now granting me my heart’s desire.”

Two years ago the desire to go to Haiti was planted in my heart. And though I prayed, I was not consumed by it. In my years of waiting, I could have hustled God, nagged Him, thrown fits, and questioned His purposes, or made attempts to make it happen. But for whatever reason, beyond myself, I did not. Looking back, I delighted in the Lord and now, well now I am about to experience God granting me the desire of my heart.

It seems that we are always waiting for something: a job, a raise, a deal to go through, a spouse, a child, deliverance, a response from Heaven, or, you fill in the blank according to your situation. Basically, we are waiting for life to get better. I do believe that most of the things we are waiting for are not selfish, but God planted desires that will satisfy the “abundant life” that is promised to us in John 10:10. I ask for us to stop and consider this question: How are you waiting?

In considering my waiting for Haiti and my waiting for other desires, I see a difference. I normally wait and wait and wait and continue waiting. Somewhere in between waiting and waiting, a series of happenings begin to unfold:

I over think

I doubt and nagg God

I become anxious

I am led by emotions

I contemplate methods of manipulation

I try to help God and accelerate His purpose

I grow weary, burdened and discouraged

Bitterness kicks in

Hold up! You too?! When we wait and our expectations aren't met within our time frame or in a less favorable manner we can spiral into a series of ugly and rebellious attitudes. Therefore, learning what delighting in the Lord is and it's benefits is instrumental for our waiting season. Delighting cannot happen if we are not in God's word, committed to prayer and active in His service. Delighting removes our constant fixation on the desire and causes us to focus on the Giver of every good and perfect gift. Delighting on the Giver will enable us to wait joyfully and patiently. Delighting through the waiting process will also guard our hearts from losing hope or lacking faith. Lastly, Delighting will change us, for it may be that the very outcome we are waiting for could differ from the outcome God has already chosen for us (which is always the better of the two). 

Whether you have begun to wait or have been waiting for x amount of time, know that God is fully aware of your desires. He has not forgotten you. He loves you and is working all things out for your good, and ultimately for His glory. My encouragement to you as you wait for ____________, is to not delight nor glorify a desire or its outcome, but delight fully and wholly in the Lord (not for what He can do or give, but for who He is). In His perfect timing He will grant you your heart’s desire and give you the abundant life He intended for you to live. 

May we be delightful people with delighting hearts. 

Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. Psalm 37:3-5 

I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord! Psalm 37:13-14 

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. 

Birthday Surprise. It's Melissa!

Hello there Friend! With great joy I re-introduce to you Melissa. God has given me the wonderful privilege of serving alongside Meli at youth group. She is fun, full of life and absolutely lovely. Her wisdom though, sets her apart as a pillar of faith for all who know her. May you be blessed mightily through her words. 

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Atelophobia and Failed Expectations 

We all have this idea of how our lives should pan out if everything goes according to the plan. Whether it’s marrying the man of our dreams, or getting that dream job, or traveling the world. Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes it is a tree of life”. So often we find that instead of the happily ever after we always dreamt of, life hands us a not-so-perfect husband, a mundane job, and maybe a trip to Disney (Don’t get me wrong, I love Disney, but it’s no Italy). So often we are disillusioned when reality doesn’t line up with our expectations. So what’s with our expectations anyway?

A few days ago, my mother called me over and said to me, “Hey, Meli, I learned a new word today! Atelophobia, it means the fear of imperfection. There, I’ve diagnosed you!” All my life I’ve struggled with this mental plague many like to call “perfectionism”. Okay, before you start rolling your eyes and thinking, “Oh great! One of those women”, bear with me. I have no intention of whining about how hard being perfect is. Trust me, I wouldn’t know! If you’ve begun to mentally check out because you feel like you can’t really relate, stay with me because I’m going to focus on a particular aspect of my struggle that I think every woman can identify with.

I’ve been analyzing my mental processes lately in an attempt to understand why I drive myself crazy trying to get everything just the way I think it ought to be. And here’s what I’ve concluded, my condition is quite simple really, it boils down to the fear of not living up to the expectations – the expectations of others, those I place on myself, and those the Bible makes clear for a woman of God. Not all expectations are bad because by all means, we are to do everything as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23). But to be honest with you, there are times I read Proverbs 31 and think to myself, “That sounds exhausting! I’m just trying to make it through college.” I’m sure the circumstances are different for everyone, but I hope you understand where I’m coming from. Because of all that’s expected of us, we are forced to juggle our responsibilities while trying to be everything to everyone. Ironically, as a result of being spread so thin, sometimes I feel more like I’m hardly being anything to anyone. When the desire to please others or ourselves takes precedence over our desire to please God, we have lost sight of our purpose and we will eventually burn out.

Jeremiah 2:13 says, “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.” These cisterns are things we place our trust in to satisfy our needs; things we put our hope in to meet our expectations.

Tragically, what usually ends up happening when those needs are not met, we begin to resent those who we feel let us down. We sort of play the blame game and in our minds we’re telling ourselves things like, “if this thing had never happened” or “if he were just more ______” or “if I had just been better” or “if God had only done something about it” then maybe I would be happy and I could be a better wife/servant/friend/mother.

Within the last few years, God has been revealing bitterness and resentment that I’ve allowed to creep in to my heart. I have resented myself for failures and shortcomings. I’ve also known what it is to resent others for not being what I wanted them to be, and in a way I resented God for not making everything right. Remember that part of the proverb that talks about the heart being made sick? Well, yeah, it got ugly. At certain times in my life, I had allowed it to affect me so much that I became very critical and cynical. Before I knew it, I could hardly recognize myself. I felt like a Pharisee – a white washed tomb. In my attempt to get everything just right, I had become self-righteous and cold-hearted.

God allowed me to have that experience so I would know how awful it is to be so far from him and so that I could understand where leaning on anything other than him will lead. I still struggle with perfectionism and self-resentment but God always reminds me of 2 Corinthians 12:9 “And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 

My prayer for you is that you trust God regardless of your circumstances and that you would always remember His faithfulness. I copied one of my favorite prayers (Not that I believe in reciting prayers, but I love how this was worded):

God, grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;

Enjoying one moment at a time;

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world

as it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right

if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with Him

Forever in the next.

Amen.
-Reinhold Niebuhr

You can read Melissa's Birthday Surprise post from last year HERE. You won't be disappointed!