He's in the Waiting

It was a sunny afternoon my freshman year of college and I was sitting at the depot when I received a link from my mom with Kristene DiMarco’s song, Take Courage. I’m a big fan of spontaneous worship, and this 12-minute song was packed with truths I didn’t even know I needed to hear.

Take courage my heart, stay steadfast my soul He’s in the waiting,  Hold onto your hope, as your triumph unfolds He’s never failing…

She sent it to Jack as well, because Jesus knows we both felt the seemingly unending discontentment that comes with being a college student and high school senior. I was learning the ropes of freshman life and contemplating every day if Georgia College was the right place for me, and Jack was finishing up his senior year of high school, stuck waiting for the next chapter of his life to begin.

Today, as I was walking back from Blackbird coffee, the song came on my United Pursuit radio and I knew this was a topic I needed to write about, a topic that God has given me the words to address. Its relevance today is even more so than it was back then.

As I head into finals week and take a look back on my first semester of sophomore year, I can conclude that it’s been one of the hardest by far. The hardest academically. The hardest spiritually. The hardest emotionally. I have wrestled with really tough decisions, I swam in oceans of doubt and confusion about what God wants for my life. There have been breakdowns, meltdowns, and everything in between. I have contemplated my worthiness.

I have become my own worst enemy far too many times.

But more than anything, I have felt lost, confused, like I was stuck searching for something unknown. A period of waiting, of uncertainty.

Waiting has always, in my mind, been conceived as a negative term.

We wait in lines. Wait to be accepted or denied. Wait for the weekend. Wait for the day when this or that happens, a day when we can finally be happy and free.

But recently I have come to realize, hold on, what if we have had it all backward?

I am currently studying the masterpiece that is the book of Romans, a letter Paul wrote to what once was the most advanced and thriving empire in the world. She Reads Truth is taking me through an in-depth 42-day study of this particular book of the bible and I have gained so much insight into my relationship with God.

On day 19, I was struck by a series of passages that really hit home the idea that this period of waiting may just be the most precious time of all, contrary to what we have engrained our minds to think.

Romans 8:22-25; The Message

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

Every time I read this passage, I’m gonna be honest, my eyes get watery.

We are enlarged in the waiting.

We are expanding. We are growing. We are being amplified. We are being intensified, extended, magnified, swollen with the work that our savior is implementing.

We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. Of course.

When we are waiting for a call back we don’t see the boss on the other end of the phone exclaiming to the company how he thinks we would be perfect for the job.

I’ve learned that God is testing us to see if we can trust Him in this period of seemingly invisible growth that we don’t even know is taking place.

I know it sucks, it does. As humans, we hate not knowing the end result. It eats us to our core. Waiting makes us feel stuck, feel like our life is going nowhere, like we have messed up and now we are at a loss for what to do or where to go.

I know I’ve felt that a lot this semester.

But I’ve been hit with a reality check.

Because honey, if we think we have that much say in the direction of our life, we need to cool it.

In the words of Lisa Bevere: We are not that powerful.

To think that we know when our life is going nowhere is saying that we have no trust in the God that gave us life in the first place.

We must not forget Romans 8:25

But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

Oh the day, the glorious day of our expectancy.

When a woman is pregnant, she knows those 9 months of endless mood swings, nausea, and pain are going to be worth it as soon as she hears her baby’s first cry.

We need to start looking at our life in the same way. We may not be able to see the birth at the end of our own long and hard laborious period of waiting, but just like the expectant mother, we can be expectant for whatever God has in store for us.

I’m a liberal studies major. If that doesn’t tell you just how uncertain and undecided I am about my future I don’t know what does. Some days are hard, really hard. I get scared, stressed, and I think too hard about the long-term picture.

But God doesn’t get stressed. He tells us to not worry about the troubles of tomorrow but to live in the presence of today. One day at a time. Slowly, deeply, gently.

Ephesians 3:20; The Message

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

It may be a slow and gentle awakening, but there is no doubt God is thorough in His work.

He is not done with you. He is not done with me.

One day, we will look back and realize that the most important growth in our lifetime is the growth we didn’t even know was happening.

But oh, is it happening.

#invisiblecrownco