Wait on the Lord

In a Delay, You Can Trust God’s Timing

When you pursue God’s dream for your life, you’re going to run into delays. God uses those waiting periods to prepare you and test you so that you can face whatever is coming in the next phase of your faith.

Most of us tend to worry when we are delayed. We get stressed out. We complain. We become uptight. The Israelites, when God delayed their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, reacted the same way: “On the way the people lost their patience and spoke against God and Moses. They complained” (Numbers 21:4b-5a GNT).

The Israelites’ complaining and fretting were the sins that kept them out of the Promised Land. No matter what God did for them, they found something to gripe about. They had no water, so God provided water. Then they had no food, but when God provided food, they complained about the food they got. It’s easy to gripe when we’re forced to wait, isn’t it? We don’t mind waiting if we can complain about it.

Proverbs 19:2 says, “Impatience will get you into trouble.” It’s frustrating to be in a hurry and God isn’t. God is never in a hurry! The Bible says a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day to God. He’s larger than time. One of the most useless things to try to do is to speed up God. When we try to take matters into our own hands and help God out, we get in trouble.

When you get a dream from God and make the decision to go for it but then are forced into God’s waiting room, you start trying to figure out ways of doing God’s dream on your own.

But the Bible says to trust God’s timing: “Rest in the Lord, wait patiently for him to act …. Don’t fret and worry — it only leads to harm” (Psalm 37:7-8 TLB).

Resting can be an act of faith. It means you’re waiting on God. When Jesus and the disciples were in a boat that was caught in a big storm, Jesus just kept sleeping through all the ruckus while the disciples freaked out. When they woke him up to ask, “Why are you sleeping?!” he responded, “Do you think God is going to let the boat sink with me in it?” By sleeping through the storm, Jesus was saying that we can trust God even in the middle of a storm.

When we get into a storm, we tend to lay awake all night and fret about it. But that means that we’re not living by faith. We can’t get any sleep because we don’t really trust God to work it out. God says, “Don’t fret. Remember I’m always with you, and trust my timing.”

Worry only makes you miserable. So stop worrying, and start trusting God to work in you and through you while you are in a delay on the way to your dream.

Closure We are called to leave behind that person or situation that is not life giving: a departed child, a spouse, a parent, the loss of childhood innocence or an opportunity of a lifetime. Painful as it is, we must make a decision to be on the side of the living (for that is the reality) and stop caring for the ‘dead’ that we hold on to. In so doing, we may follow Jesus in whom there is life abundant. Prayer: Lord, thank you for teaching me where to concentrate my resources and energy. Let me accept things and relationships that I should put to rest no matter how important they were to me. I hear Your call Jesus. Instead of wallowing in my sorrow I will follow You and start living a life that brings new hope. In

Day 11

MINI MO

[Scheduled Reading: Joshua 1-21]

Joshua was a cool cat. Sort of a cross between Moses and King David.

I heard a Bible teacher once refer to Joshua as “Mini Mo” (for little Moses). Joshua was successor to Moses and took the Israelites into the promised land. He was also a fierce warrior - like King David who came along later.

One of the most effective leadership transitions in the Old Testament has to be the one between Moses and Joshua. Maybe because both men understood the importance of God’s Word.

You just read in Deuteronomy 31, where Moses commissioned Joshua and instructed the Israelites to read the entire law publicly at the end of every seven years (verse 10-13).

Sure enough, some time later Joshua read the entire law to a public assembly, including the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners(Joshua 8:35).

Joshua was very mindful to make sure the people passed the knowledge of God to the next generation (Joshua 4:6,21).

Near the end of his lifetime, Joshua made his famous public stand: as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.(24:15).

Then something interesting happens.

Joshua wrote these words in the Books of the Law of God(24:26). And what words might these be? The very words we’re reading in Joshua. It’s his book. His writing became part of the canonized scriptures we’re reading today.

Very few Old Testament leaders share the legacy of Joshua. Scriptures say Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who out-lived Joshua and had known all the work that the Lord did for Israel(24:31).

I’m inspired to be like Mini Mo.

To treasure God’s Word. To read it publicly in my home. And to pass down the knowledge of God to the next generation in my home.