Entry 17: In the waiting.
Hello, friends!
Welcome to Love Letters from God. You are here, so the presence of God is here.
I am starting this letter off with the biggest sigh because why can’t working out be a one-and-done thing? Why does it have to be continuous? I started taking 10k steps a day because why not walk when it is sunny, but it’s like, do I want to be hiking up hills and sweating every day just to be active? Again, sighhhhh. Maybe I should pray about it, but actually praying about it means a solution would come, and maybe all I actually want to do is complain. At the end of the day, I am just a girl.
I recently asked the Holy Spirit if waiting ever gets easier. I didn’t get the response immediately, but I got a response eventually. Not what I wanted to hear, but it was a response. I think a part of me wanted it to be one of those things where He’s like, “Yeah, with every waking day, it gets easier, and you ease more into it,” but boy, oh boy, was I wrong. I don’t even know why I thought that because as I am currently waiting, has it gotten easier by the second? Absolutely not. Have I eased more into it? Some days I accept my situation, and other days I am actually quarrelling with my Father in Heaven because it looks like He is toying with my heart and emotions, wasting my time and He is on a mission to constantly break my heart. This is me being 100% honest because I trust this is a safe space. The main thing is staying in the presence of God because His word says in Jeremiah 17:7-8.
Jeremiah 17:7-8 AMP; “Blessed [with spiritual security] is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord And whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord. “For he will be [nourished] like a tree planted by the waters, That spreads out its roots by the river; And will not fear the heat when it comes; But its leaves will be green and moist. And it will not be anxious and concerned in a year of drought Nor stop bearing fruit.”
He told me it does not necessarily get easier because it is not about ease but about your heart, and it does not appear to be black and white. When we are waiting, which as Christians we would be waiting for Jesus to come back, for example, our hearts are being transformed and renewed to, in the case of Jesus, for us to be prepared enough to be His brides. It is the same thing as waiting for marriage or for a significant other. From the moment you prayed about it or brought it to the feet of God, He is tuning your heart to be able to receive your partner and also be like Jesus. With every waiting season, we become better equipped for the next because, to be honest, it was never about what we are waiting for; it is about Jesus using the season or what we are waiting for to make us look more like Him. The next time we have to wait for something, we have a track record because there’s actually proof even though Jesus dying on the cross and resurrecting is proof enough that God is faithful .
This brings me to the heart posture of waiting. While typing this, I literally said to the Holy Spirit that I am not one to talk about waiting because, if anything, I am the worst example of it. But He reminded me that at the beginning of this year, I asked Him how I did last year, and He said, “You have waited well.” To be honest, at first I was like, probably not. I have grumbled, cried, wailed like David, questioned His character like Job, and doubted His sincerity like Sarah. The list can go on, but I showed up, and the Holy Spirit’s metric of grading how well we are waiting is not like ours, so we can take hope in that. He does not expect that every single day we are speaking in tongues, revering His name, and pulling out all the stops when, in reality, we don’t even believe what we are saying. What He expects from us in waiting is to be present at His feet every day, seeking His face, and engaging in prayer as an exchange of thoughts.
I remember most of last year, I told God that opening my eyes when He wakes me up is the best I can do, so He should carry the rest. And guess what? He absolutely did, and here I am typing this. So this is your encouragement this Monday morning that you are waiting well. All you have to do is keep showing up, even in annoyance, anger, frustration, etc., and leave the rest to God!
Prompt: Ask God how well you are waiting in this season.
I pray that you know how loved and sought after you are by the One who created you.
Talk soon,
Isioma.