Every year at my church, we have a theme, which I’m sure many churches do, but the theme my pastor chose for this year resonates with me in a personal way: “The Year of Again.” A few months ago, I wrote about patience and how God was challenging, me at the time, to wait on Him in the particular matter of a check that I was waiting for that seemingly took forever to arrive. But it only felt like forever because of how impatient I was, because I was leaning and depending on the check for provision and not God. My father reminded me first, not to do anything out of strife or vainglory (Philippians 2:3-4) and that while I was waiting for the check, it wasn’t the check that provided for me, it was God and the prolonging of the wait for the check was an opportunity to exercise patience and wait on God. The money came shortly after and all was well in that regard. I examined myself after I talked to my dad and changed my posture, so in my mind, I passed the patience exam; I’d done well enough.
But the reason the theme for my church this year resonates with me is that I find myself again wrestling with this virtue of patience, also known as longsuffering, a fruit of the Spirit.
Initially, I didn’t even think it would be a problem. I know how to wait on God, I thought. I have done it before. But then is not now and as we grow in Christ, greater is required of us. What once was enough for us to suffice is no longer enough. The patience I had last year was sufficient for the situation I was in at the time, but now, more is required for where I am now. Sometimes, when we go through something more than once, we construe it as punishment, as a lesson we have not yet learned. When in actuality, God is building upon our understanding from before. God isn’t punishing me, but rather giving me another opportunity to be patient, teaching me how to solely lean and depend on Him, but this time, to a greater degree. At the time, it was trusting Him while I waited on a delayed check, but now, He is challenging me to trust Him with my life and wait on Him, and be of good courage (Psalm 27). Before, I waited for two weeks and now, it’s been almost nine months in this waiting period. My initial struggle was not knowing what I was waiting for. I thought there was this climactic moment I just had to hold out on until I reached it, but that’s not really being patient, is it? Counting down to a timeline of my own making?
In fact, the definition of patience is, “able to accept or tolerate delays, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious,” which is not how I’ve been all these months. I have been anxious because the things I’ve put faith in, particularly man and myself have failed spectacularly.
I have not been able to help myself, to find a way out of this wilderness. None of my plans have worked. Nothing has changed my situation, but I realized the situation wasn’t going to change, but my course of action needed to. I was claiming to be waiting on God while actively being anxious, frantically trying to solve the problem on my own, and lacking faith. But what I’ve realized is this time in the wilderness has been wringing things out of me like the instinct I have of trying to lean on my own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6), and solve things on my own. He has challenging me to truly me to wait on Him and be of good courage (Psalm 27), to be content whether I am abased or abound (Philippians 4:12), and to take my burdens to Him and leave them there; not pray and then be anxious, but to wholly trust Him. This all takes time of course, but I stopped thinking of the wilderness and where I’m at in life as something I need to escape or bypass, but rather, an opportunity to endure and try to learn as much as I can about God, about myself to ultimately, strengthen our relationship. This is about breaking old habits and establishing new ones and where better to start than my relationship with God?
“Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.”- Isaiah 43:19
I’ve realized that my impatience was informed by my past. By that I mean, we’re familiar with how God has prevailed in our lives in the past, and we should be; we should be encouraged by the fact that He has interceded on our behalf, He has delivered us, He has made a way out of no way before and will surely, do it again. We ought to daily remind ourselves of His perfect track record.
However, the error is limiting God to only intervening in our present and future in the same ways He once did before. I’m speaking for myself because I’ve been in the wilderness for the past few months, and I’ve been waiting for God to intervene exactly as He once did before.
I haven’t worked in a few months. Nevertheless, God has provided for me. He hasn’t blessed me with a new job, but He has shown me that He supplies all my needs. I have not lacked food, shelter, clothing or any essential that I have needed. Initially, I assumed that it would be like last time and the job search would be relatively quick, but that’s not the way God works. He is not in the business of being predictable. I thought I was meant to hit the pavement, apply for jobs, and surely, I would find a job. NOPE. What was I doing wrong? Then I realized I was doing it again, relying on Danielle and trying to figure this out for myself. God is doing something different, so I decided to as well. Here I am trying to get ahead of Him and myself. Instead, I decided to surrender my employment to Him. The next day, my pastor preached a sermon about the discipline of patience. He talked about how sometimes, when we are “working”, though we may believe we are making progress, we are really just occupying ourselves with busy work that is only derailing us and impedes God’s will for us, which convicted me.
It was also affirming to have confirmation, to know that this time, my instincts to rely on myself was not an instinct. I realized that God has better than I can imagine and doesn’t need my help, but also, this time isn’t like last time. Faith, as my dad says, is a muscle, and this time, He’s flexing my faith muscle a bit differently. I will not pretend to know what is ahead, but I am seeing the fruit of the new thing He is doing in me, even in the wilderness. He is bringing me closer to Him and that is becoming more important to me than where He is taking me. Sometimes, we are exactly where God wants us to be, but we’re asking the wrong question or we have the wrong perspective.
We are in a rush because of the deadlines of the world we live in and that, among other things, makes us impatient, makes us weary of anything that isn’t instant or immediate but our aspiration is not to be like the world, to be adjudicated by the world or bear the image of the world, but the image of Christ. So long as there is breath in our body, God has work to do in us, so that we look like Christ and that doesn’t happen overnight, so we must embrace the process and God who is with us through it all. I leave you with the first verse of one of my favorite hymns. May we avail ourselves to God, our Potter, His will, and His time.
Have Thine own way Lord/Have Thine own way/Thou art the potter I am the clay/Mold me and make me after Thy will/While I am waiting yielded and still
