What are you waiting on?

As I talk to women, young and old alike, I find that almost all of us are waiting on something.  Currently, I am waiting on my pregnant belly to get bigger so that I actually look pregnant!  Every day I wake up and check my figure in the mirror to see if some significant change has happened over night.  I am actively, and sometimes very impatiently, waiting for a bigger belly.

Other times in my life I have waited for other things.  Waited to meet the right man, waited to be engaged, waited for the wedding day to come.  Another season of my life that I avidly waited for was my graduation from college.  Jimmy and I were traveling every weekend and trying to get through our classes with passing grades.  I was taking 19 hours both semesters of my final year of college and Jimmy was taking 17.  Talk about a heavy load.  We were so excited for this season to be over that we made a countdown on a big poster board, which read on the back, "FREE AT LAST!"  Just crossing off another day each morning gave us hope that graduation day, and thus freedom from our tiring school work, was just that much closer.

So what does the Bible have to say about waiting?  A lot actually.  As I read through the Psalms, I noticed verse after verse about promises for those who wait.  Except there is one difference between Biblical waiting and what most of us do: the object of our waiting.  Almost every single time there is a promise in scripture about those who wait, it is only for those who wait ON THE LORD.

So what does that mean?  How does one wait on the Lord?  We can take a lesson from all the other waiting we do in life.  One thing we learn is that waiting is an active process.  It is an intentional looking for something and watching for it to come.  It is an anticipatory longing.  It's as if you "have your eye out" for it.  Always aware of the lack of it you have.  It is in this way that we should wait on the Lord.  We should go through our day intentionally looking for God to speak to us and watching for Him to show up in our day.  We should meditate on His ways and cause our hearts to long for Him with anticipation.  We should "keep our eyes peeled" for the Lord every day.  Ask Him to reveal more of Himself to you, and then look for it to happen and watch for it daily with anticipation!

Waiting on God comes from an awareness of your lack of Him, or a consciousness that there is more of Him to be had.  If you are satisfied with how much of God you have, then you have no reason to wait for Him.  But as we grasp how infinitely rich His character is, we will realize how little of Him we really know and how much deeper our relationship with Him can be!

I believe that much of our sanctification as women happen through seasons of waiting.  Probably because our biggest struggle is a longing to be in control, and when you are waiting on something, you have none.  The hurdle we all have to overcome when we are waiting, is to make sure we are waiting on God FIRST and FOREMOST.  My challenge today is to make sure I am looking forward to getting to know God better more than I am looking forward to a pregnant belly.  It's not that wanting to look pregnant is bad in and of itself, neither is longing for a God-honoring marriage or for school to be out.  But what do I long for MOST?  Is it God?  Is it to know Him more?  If it isn't, I need to check my heart for idols I may have made out of His gifts.

The promises for those who wait on God are wonderfully encouraging.  Check this out: Those who wait on God will never be ashamed (psalm 25:3), will inherit the land (psalm 37:9), the Lord favors them (psalm 147:11), they will never grow weary (Isaiah 40:31), and God acts on their behalf (Isaiah 64:4).  And there are many more! So what are you waiting on today?  And will you choose to wait on the Lord with an even stronger passion?  He is the one thing you will wait on that is sure to never disappoint.  Let's choose to wait on Him today.

Knowing GodKelly Needham