We are praying this series has been meaningful to you, and that God is using it to help you embrace the divine potential of learning to wait on God. Let’s take time this week to reflect on what you’re learning. The deeper we go in understanding what it means to wait on God, we learn that we actually have to UNLEARN many natural tendencies first.
Waiting on God isn’t an act of willpower. It is a spiritual practice. If you were at the Women’s Night of Worship, Annette shared an observation that waiting is very connected to other spiritual characteristics like strength, hope and faith. “…Waiting is often the application of many other, more abstract, biblical qualities of character. Hope, for instance, requires waiting. Faith is all about waiting. Patience and waiting are yoked together. Trust requires delayed gratification. In fact, run down your mental list of the fruit of the Spirit and see if waiting doesn’t play into every single one of them.” (Wayne Stiles, Waiting on God, Baker Publishing Group, 2015, pp. 16-17.)
So perhaps you feel like waiting is still really hard for you… But is your heart more filled with hope that God is more than able to show up in your circumstance? Are you growing in trust that God is going to come through? Has your faith in Christ grown over these weeks? Like the song says:
Now I see all that I have
Oh, I’ve got my confidence back
I put my trust in the One who still does miracles
You do miracles
You are more than able
Who am I to deny what the Lord can do?
Her Story:
Sometimes we compare our capacity to our To Do List and think… “there is no way I can do this”. I need to study, work, parent, cook, clean, exercise, pay bills, and go to small group in the next 24 hours. Insert your own list here. We can feel tired just lying in bed thinking about our day. Day in, day out, that can lead to feeling weary, overwhelmed and depleted.
When we get stuck in that mindset, we can start to think God must be the same way. We look through the lens of our current reality and we can’t fathom that God would have time for the problems of nearly 8 billion individual people. We sing the words from “More Than Able” that declare He is able to do more than our minds can comprehend (Ephesians 3:20). But the limitations of our own perspective prevent us from imagining the prize that awaits on the other side of God’s ability. We can’t imagine it… so we don’t ask.
So, where do I start?
Pause for a moment. Take a deep breath in through the nose. Slowly exhale. Repeat 7 times. With every exhale, say one of these phrases: “God is more than able. God is always with me. God still works miracles. God has never left me, and He never will.”
My name is Sorelyss McGinty and I’m a Spiritual Formation Pastor at the Snellville Campus. When I was 7 years old, I learned to repeat these truths to myself. I did not own a bike, so I didn’t know how to ride one. One day, my friend asked me if I wanted to ride hers. Too embarrassed to tell her I did not know how to ride a bike; I chose to believe that God would help me. So, I whispered under my breath, “God, please you can do it? You can help me ride this bike. You are able.” I stepped on the bike and took it for a spin like I had been riding for months. It was the craziest little miracle a 7-year-old could have experienced! Can I share some good news? God has not changed, and He wants to perform a miracle in your life today. The same God who helped me ride a bike can help you too. The same God who answered the childlike prayer of a 7-year-old girl also breathed life back into the lifeless body of Lazarus 2000 years ago.
Now don’t get me wrong. I have experienced loss and times when I was not able to ride; when I have felt like God did not answer my prayer. I remember one day when I questioned Him, God whispered to me, “I am able to be your strength and peace in the middle of this storm.” See, God never promised we would be without pain, or struggles, but He did promise He would be with us through them. (Deuteronomy 31:8) And that is all we ever need. I love this quote from Charles Spurgeon that says, “It is not the strength of your faith that saves you, but the strength of Him upon whom you rely! Christ is able to save you if you come to Him – be your faith weak or be it strong.”
