Thursday, October 28, 2010

Wait and Pray, Pray and Wait

I sat down and did my daily devotional this morning. Some days my devotion just speaks to me. Today not so much. I am impatient right now. I can feel everything piling up and want to deal with it now! I have never been a patient person and this is something God continually works in me. On top of not being patient I like control. I mean who doesn't? We all like to know that we know whats going to happen and when. This also is something that God continually works on in me. It took a very long teenagerhood and several years into my 20's for me to realize I need to give this up. I cannot control what I do not understand. I cannot wait patiently without giving up control to God because he is the only one who knows the path. He is so patient and he waits for me to understand this over and over and over again. I just need to wait.

So back to the devotional... it didn't get me anywhere. I read it and was like what? Frustrated I set my Bible down next to the computer (yes I got on facebook, love me some facebook (: ) As I was sitting there I glanced over at my Bible and realized it was not on the page I had just read. It had flipped itself to a new devotional. As I started reading I had that oh this is for me moment that I just love when reading something. I had to share it:

There are so many ways in which God's actions or inactions make little sense to us. We ask him for help, and he is silent. We trust in him to provide, and he withholds. But is God inconsistent, or is he simply running according to another time schedule, another set of priorities?

Habakkuk questions God's plan to use the pagan nation of Babylon to discipline the wayward Israel. He then settles in to wait for God's answer: "I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I can to give to this complaint" (Habakkuk 2:1). Like a guard who waits through his watch with eyes peeled for a sign of movement, Habakkuk waited for God.

So must we. We must pray with a willingness to wait and wait with a willingness to pray. Waiting and praying go together. Like two shoes of a pair or two halves of a whole, they work as a team.


I know that the things that are going on right now I have to give to God. He is in control and its my job to bring him what I have and see what he does with it. He knows the path. So taking it one day at a time, today I will wait and pray and pray and wait because only God knows what will happen tomorrow.

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