What to Do When You’re Waiting on God
by Joyce Meyer
Have you been praying about a situation in your life and found yourself
waiting for a breakthrough? Are you wondering why the answer hasn't come yet?
Do you feel as though victory is passing you by?
Sometimes when we pray long and hard about a situation in our life
without receiving any answers, we just learn to live with it. We go on about
our business, wondering if or when God will send the answer. But God does hear
those prayers, and He’s working out the answers even though we may not know all
the details. Our situation can change suddenly—quickly without warning!
But one thing is certain: Before God moves suddenly, we will wait.
Waiting for answers is a fact of life—nobody gets out of it. So the question is
not if we'll wait, but rather how we’ll wait. And I believe how will determine
how long.
Two Ways to Wait
All of us will wait passively, or we'll wait expectantly. A passive
person hopes something good will happen and is willing to sit around waiting to
see if it does. After a short time, he gives up, saying, "That’s it! I've
waited and waited and nothing's happened." The passive person has a lot of
wishbone but not much backbone!
The expectant person, on the other hand, is hopeful, believing the
answer is just around the corner, due to arrive any minute. His belief is not a
passive thing. His heart is full of hope, expecting his problem to be solved at
any moment. He wakes up every morning expecting to find his answer. He may wait
and wait, but suddenly what he’s been waiting for happens.
Expect It to Happen
It’s just like when a woman is pregnant; it's said that she is expecting
a baby. She carries inside her the promise of a baby, and even though she can’t
see it, she knows it's there. The moment she learns of her pregnancy, she
begins to plan for her baby's arrival. She starts collecting items she'll need
and busily gets the nursery ready. She actively prepares for the arrival of the
baby because she knows the promise will be fulfilled—it's just a matter of
time. She is expectant and she'll wait as long as it takes.
We know the word wait means "to expect" or "to look
for." But remember, it also means "to serve" — just like a
waiter waits on your table at a restaurant. Our act of waiting isn’t supposed
to be spent sitting around passively hoping that something will happen sometime
soon.
Be Eager with Faith
Once we've asked God to answer a question or solve a problem, we need to
be eagerly awaiting His answer. We need to be serving actively, aggressively
and expectantly. When our hearts are eager to hear from God, He loves to rush
in suddenly with His solution. In many cases this waiting period actually
serves as a time of preparation for the answer. If God answered right away,
many of us would be ill-prepared to handle His solution.
Sometimes we find ourselves in such horrible messes that it's hard to
imagine waiting one more second. But we need to keep waiting on God and
trusting Him with a sweet and simple faith. Then, in a way we never could've
figured out—God moves suddenly!
Then All of a
Sudden...
In the Bible Paul and Silas knew
about waiting, and they waited well. Acts
16 tells the story of how they were attacked by a crowd,
beaten and thrown in jail. Verse
24 says the jailer put them into the
inner prison (the dungeon) and fastened their feet in the stocks. He was making
sure they couldn't escape. But about midnight, God showed up. Now it would have
been nice if He'd come a little earlier, but Paul and Silas didn’t seem to
mind—they just decided to start singing and began to worship the Lord. They
began to wait on God.
Verses
25 & 26 say, "But about midnight, as Paul and
Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the [other]
prisoners were listening to them, suddenly there was a great earthquake, so
that the very foundations of the prison were shaken; and at once all the doors
were opened and everyone's shackles were unfastened." God answered them
suddenly!
When people patiently and expectantly wait on God in the midst of
horrible circumstances, suddenly God breaks through.
So don't give up! Don’t stop believing! Stay full of hope and
expectation. God's power is limitless, and He'll break through for you.
Culled from http://www.joycemeyer.org/articles/ea.aspx?article=what_to_do_when_youre_waiting_on_god
