While We Wait

I have been asking God to work a miracle for almost a year now, and sometimes I honestly want to give up because I can’t see him moving. Part of me is tempted to believe that if I just learn the thing he’s trying to get me to learn, then God will finally do what I’m begging him to do.

I don’t know how common this is in the church, and I don’t know where I encountered it, but somewhere I learned that if God is making us wait, it’s because we need to learn something, and he’s just waiting for us to hurry up and stop being dorks before he helps us. Being a perfectionist with anxiety issues, I take this literally and worry myself to tears just trying to figure out what in the world is freaking wrong with me so I can fix it and get God to help me, for the love of everything!!

But recently I’ve started to understand that this actually is an untrue belief, a lie taught to me disguised as truth. Humans will totally love in such a conditional manner; I’ve experienced that firsthand. But perhaps God isn’t like that. Maybe our Heavenly Father is making us wait because he knows some things that we can’t until it’s past us. Isaiah 55:8-9 informs us, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'” (NIV) Jesus tells us that we are evil and yet we can do great good (Matthew 7:9-11), so how much greater and kinder and more loving is God? So perhaps this waiting is protection, and this “no” or “wait” answer from God is actually him looking out for our best interests, not trying to hurt us.

If we aren’t supposed to be learning something during the waiting seasons, then what are we supposed to be doing? I’m wondering if perhaps we should be trying to know God better during this time. And as for all the lessons I’m needing to be learning? Well, I might as well do them now, since I don’t have anything else to do.

…I just finished my first semester of college as a part-time student, yet I say that I have nothing else to do but work on myself. I’m meaning I can focus on these spiritual and mental health challenges while I wait for a miracle. And then when God sees that the time of my outside circumstances is ready for the miracle to occur, my heart will be ready for it.

So maybe that’s the truth of our waiting. God is waiting for the perfect time when the miracle will be of the greatest help. And while we’re in this season, we might as well spend our time on the lessons we’d be needing to work on, no matter what. None of this “earning grace” stuff. Ephesians 2:8-9 says that’s not the way salvation works, anyway. So maybe that’s not how miracles work, either…