I am a pretty patient person. I wait in lines or waiting rooms and surf the interwebs. I’m not much of a spontaneous shopper. I order online and wait 5-7 business days. I do that fairly well. I wait.

As I’ve gotten older, my God-sized dream is becoming clearer. But, I’ve noticed that my normal patient tendency can become a bit hazy. I don’t want that to be the case. This God adventure that we call the Christian life is full of twists and turns, ups and downs, and setbacks and successes. I want to wait well and trust the purposes of God.

Psalm 130 rocked me to my core. The Israelites, during their forty years in the dessert, waited. That’s all they did. How they waited affected how long they stayed in the wilderness. Their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land was supposed to take 11 days. Although there is provision and learning in the desert, I don’t want it to take 40 years to see the fulfillment of my dream.

Like many of you, I’m in that in between place. God has been so faithful to open doors of opportunity, and yet I desire for more open doors. I want to wait in the right way.

Our attitudes have a great deal to do with our process and time frame in regards to stepping into our callings.

Help, God — the bottom has fallen out of my life!
Master, hear my cry for help!
Listen hard! Open your ears!
Listen to my cries for mercy.

If you, God, kept records on wrongdoings,
who would stand a chance?
As it turns out, forgiveness is Your habit,
and that’s why You’re worshiped.

I pray to God — my life a prayer — 
and wait for what He’ll say and do.
My life’s on the line before God, my Lord,
waiting and watching till morning,
waiting and watching till morning.

O Israel, wait and watch for God —
with God’s arrival comes love,
with God’s arrival comes generous redemption.
No doubt about it — He’ll redeem Israel,
buy back Israel from captivity to sin.
{Psalm 130, MSG}

Dialogue honestly with the Father.

God knows everything. He knows what we think and feel. We don’t necessarily need to tell Him, and yet, at the same time, we do. It’s not for His sake, it’s for ours. Being honest with Him and laying out every hope and fear does something on the inside of us. It brings it into the light of His truth. We can now compare what we believe next to what He says. One is true. I’m quite sure I don’t have to tell you which one it is. It feels like my feelings change with every new breath. They are not trustworthy.

“Feelings make lousy leaders, but they make great followers.” ~ Jason Laird

Any dream that He has given me needs to align with His Word that stands the test of time. That honesty will give way to certainty in every vision that He plants within us.

Confess our sin.

With the realization of any dream comes responsibility. It is weighty to carry a God-sized dream. In order to hold up under the pressure, we must have pure hearts and pure motives. In my flesh, I want recognition, popularity, fame, fortune, and position. In God’s economy, the greatest of all is the servant of all. The last shall be first. In order for me to have a kingdom mindset, there needs to be true confession. It’s hard to get down to the nitty gritty of my sinful nature, but I must. You must. Put every known sin at His feet and watch Him wash it white as snow. He can handle the worst in us and still love us enough to send Christ to die for us. We can trust Him.

Trust in His timing.

This one can be tricky. In theory, waiting on God’s timing is totally doable. In reality, I can get in the way. I can pry doors open that He never intended to open, and I can close doors that He wanted me to walk through. I can manipulate and persuade and speak all the flattering words to the “right” people, in the “right” place, at the “right” time. I can do all of these things . . . in my flesh. I want to operate in the Spirit at all costs. And that means operating on His timetable.

God is never late and He’s never early. He’s always right on time.

Expect good to accompany the dream.

The manifestation of the dream is good. It’s great, but that shouldn’t satisfy our every expectation. When God accomplishes a work, He does so in abundance. He will not only bring the dream, but also the fullness of His character along with the dream. The final verses in Psalm 130 tell of His love and redemption that come after we’ve waited well. He brings peace, hope, joy, salvation, grace, mercy and life! That beats out any dream, any day.

Our goal is never to be the dream itself, but the Giver of that dream.

In what area are you finding it difficult to wait well?

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In God’s economy, the greatest of all is the servant of all. {Tweet This!}

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