This post almost didn’t happen.
I’m exhausted and out of town. I just helped my parents downsize and move from their home of 15 years. How do we all collect so much stuff even when we don’t intend to? And why is moving so hard?! {Needless to say, I won’t be shopping any time soon.}
Simultaneously, our own home is for sale and we’re trying to get ready to move with a 16-month-old. This is no small feat, keeping every nook immaculate and ready at a moment’s notice. Living through all the showings and open houses isn’t living. It’s only been a few weeks but I’m ready for this part to be over. We are being obedient and hopeful.
What’s taking the air out of my balloon is the waiting and perseverance required for our family’s next step. We’ve made an offer on our dream. Again. There are too many stories to share of deals gone bad, people letting us down, and all the waiting to know what God has in store for us. This part of our journey has lasted three years but has intensified over the last few weeks.
My life is a little hectic and I find myself holding my breath all the time. To be honest it’s a culmination of dreams, prayers, nerves and fears, and anticipation for how the rest of His story for us will read. We will know more this week if we get to start living this dream. I’m excited to start sharing with you about our God-led adventure.
So, I’m taking a deep breath and writing a note to myself that you can read if you want. This is a reminder I need right now. Maybe you do, too?
Blessed is the person who perseveres under trial,
because when you have stood the test, you will receive the crown of life
that God has promised to those who love Him.
James 1:12
I read this verse and think of the Christians who are enduring great trials and persecution. The life and death kind. I quickly trivialize my situation, whatever it might be, and convince myself my stuff doesn’t matter. But it does. No matter the size or how I view the importance, every situation matters in God’s plan.
I’ve been thinking about Daniel the last few days. He prayed for 21 days in anguish waiting on the Lord’s reply. God could have answered Daniel in any way He wanted. But He chose to send an angel to reveal His truth to Daniel.
Gabriel had to fight the enemy to get the message to Daniel . . . for 21 days. Both human and angel had to persevere mightily. I can only imagine how encouraged Daniel was by an angel delivering such a powerful and difficult message about Israel’s future! I encourage you to read Daniel 10 in its entirety. So moving.
I love what Gabriel says to Daniel:
“Don’t be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day you began to pray for understanding
and to humble yourself before your God, your request has been heard in heaven.
I have come to answer your prayer.”
Daniel 10:12
Wisdom and humble adoration before God was the key. Daniel didn’t let up. Daniel didn’t throw in the prayer towel after a few days because heaven was quiet. Daniel didn’t expect the Lord to only answer in the ways he was accustomed to. Daniel clung to the Lord and held on for dear life knowing God would answer sooner or later.
“Don’t be afraid. For you are very precious to God.
Peace! Be encouraged! Be strong!”
Daniel 10:19
It seems God really doesn’t want us to be afraid since most angelic messengers start their sentence with, “Don’t be afraid!”
I need to not be fearful this God-sized dream won’t come true. God created it, planted it in my heart, developed the passion in me to see it through, and He will make it come to pass in His timing, in His way.
I can have peace. And because of His peace, I can be encouraged and strong.
I pray I’ll be like Daniel and hold on for God’s timing of His God-sized dream. I pray I’ll have peace in my circumstances and persevere with courage and strength. I pray I will wait on His best and only the answers He can orchestrate. I pray I will look for His answer in all the miracles He sends, even the appearance of an angel.
I pray whatever situation you’re facing today God will finally answer your prayers and you will know how precious you are to Him.
Stephanie,
What a wonderfully encouraging post! I have a group of friends and we have all been through similar trials. We jokingly call ourselves the “perseverance posse”. We encourage each other to keep on keeping on and in the process have helped each other find the peace in our Lord that you speak about. I have also persevered on my own and each time God was faithful to bring me through the trial and I believe that my character has grown because of it. My dream for quite a few years is to see my prodigal son baptized as a believer. Readers and writers here have helped me to persevere and trust that God will bring this to pass in His timing and in His way. Thank you to all those who have prayed for me…I am eternally grateful!
Blessings,
Bev
Thank you this post..exactly what I needed to hear and read this morning. Isn’t God’s timing perfect!!!!
Oh Stephanie! What a great reminder to read this and be encouraged this morning. I don’t see much about Daniel in a lot of devotionals but it makes me want to go read the whole book over again. Thanks for your bringing it to light and I hope you guys are blessed as you move forward into where ever God is calling you. Have a wonderful day!
Thank you for sharing this note that you wrote to yourself. I needed to read it too. I love this passage from Daniel … so full of encouragement and hope.
Oh, Stephanie. You spoke to my heart today. We’re waiting on a God-sized plan of our own… and waiting… and waiting. I have been fighting the Lord (in my heart and in word), questioning why He has been so silent for so long. I’ve never read Daniel 10 before, but I think I need to sit more in those verses today. In a season when my tendency has been to be angry, thanks for spurring me closer to Him.
Stephanie, once again your words are divinely inspired and beautifully delivered. Your insights during your seasons of waiting encourage me greatly during my own waiting season, while I hold on to what God has whispered to me and pray that he will answer in his time, while working out the miraculous details only he can orchestrate. You are bringing his message of hope to me today!
Oh Stephanie, I’ve been there… After 2 1/2 years of praying and WAITING, God blessed us with a new spot to call home that is amazing. As I look back at the disappointments, I now can see why it was worth the wait. (This has been true for many life circumstances.) Just this morning I was doing my Children of the Day Beth Moore study on Paul and perseverance. Thanks for reminding me of the wonderful messages in Daniel and I’m waiting to hear how God answers your prayer.
When my husband was transferred, we put our house on the market…confident it would see quickly. And, being assured of this by our realtor, we made another offer on a new home in our new town. OVER A YEAR LATER, our home finally sold. It was such a frustrating time, and while we still don’t know the reason why God allowed it to take so long, He was faithful to our family in those months when we were making two house-payments…even giving us the opportunity to allow family members to live there rent-free for 6 months. These words are true: “every situation matters in God’s plan.” He is definitely in even the smallest details.
I really needed this today. Thank you for taking the time to write and post. Prayers gone your way also!
Daniel. Okay. I’m going to read it. Thanks for being my Gabriel today. I need to perservere. In hope!
Thank you for sharing your heart…as we wait on our families God sized plan….adding children from Haiti into our family through adoptions Trying this week to work on waiting well on His timing. Waiting with praise, hope and joy!!
What great truths Stephanie! All He wants from us is obedience and to trust in Him. He is faithful indeed! Selling a house while living in it is my most un-fun thing to do… really I hate it. 😉 And we as women are more over-the-top clean freaks than what we need to be…I have found this to be true after selling at least 5 homes. I’m looking for that ‘last’ perfect house right now…The truths from Daniel are a must-learn for every Christian. I went through Beth Moore’s Daniel study and it changed my life. (I even had to buy the DVD’s so I could watch Beth’s teaching again and again…) God ALWAYS has perfect timing! I have finally learned this after knowing Him for 48 years. 🙂 Waiting on God is one of the hardest things to do because by nature people are impatient. But His ‘perfect timing’ is something to ALWAYS wait for. It’s not easy, but we will be blessed beyond measure if we wait, to be in His perfect will, His perfect timing. And that ‘last’, ‘perfect’ house I mentioned…I’ve got my eye on it…and I’ve asked God if it’s it…and I’m waiting… Thanks Stephanie! Praying for you!
Oh how I needed this encouraging word. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
Thank you for this post! My home is sold and the home of my dreams was sold out from under us last night!!!! So we have a little over a month to find a place to live. Thanks for calming me down today…when everything in me wants to PANIC!!!! 🙂
I feel like this post was made for me. Thank you.
Perseverance,
Thank-you for sharing this message with us today Stephanie and for your prayers as well….
I pray that all goes well for you and for your Family….
Penny
Thank you so very much for your encouragement today. My heart needed desperately to hear this message today.
Hi Stephanie, I am so thankful you went through with this post. It spoke directly to my heart. I was touched to the point of tears as I read the verses of encouragement from Daniel. like your family, my husband and I are persevering in the midst of our God sized dream. Living in our current home now through 11 months of showings as we wait for an offer despite many let downs while we continue working through our 11 th month of updates on our God given dream home which we so want to actually live in and call “home”. I can so relate to your mixture of emotions and thank you so much for sharing your experience and insight. Waiting, working and continuing optimistic in the face of nerves, excitement, fear, fatigue and thoughts of all the unknown “what ifs” is really difficult. I pray right now that the Holy Spirit pour out an extra measure of grace on us all today and thank Him for His Sovereign reign over our unique situations , I thank Him that no detail of our lives is beyond his awareness or ability to handle, I thank Him that all things are promised to work together for our good in His perfect timing. In the strong and mighty name of Jesus ……Amen
Thank you.
Thank you for those words. Truly.
Stephanie,
Prayers that your God-sized dreams come true soon. Prayers for rest for your weary soul.
Thank you for an amazing post. God is always faithful and true, but it is in His timing. I believe He allows trials and makes us wait so that we will be more dependent on Him.
I’ve had a frustrating year and am waiting for news on my hubby’s interview and a job I applied for. How will God answer us? Persevering in the waiting. More importantly I’m persevering with friends who are dealing with aging family members and one dealing with brain cancer. Will God heal them or take them home?
Prayers for everyone!
Thank you for your kind words. I’m in transition as well. Praying for God’s clarity and wisdom for a long time. And just when I thought the answers were clear something will pop up and my vision is muddled again. I wrote down your scriptures. They were so encouraging for me.
Thanks again! Praying God will help you realize your God size dream.
Thanks for this post and for reminding us of this story about Daniel. I shared what you had written as a devotional for my women’s prayer group today.
I take your post that I read today as a sign of God’s concern for me and my family. We lost our home in a fire a year ago and we’re struggling to find the new home God wants for us. The process is tedious, tiring and frustrating. Patience has never been a virtue I have and today you showed me that all will be well in God’s time even if His answer to our prayers is taking a snail’s pace. I’m truly moved to tears on passages of Daniel and in it I find the courage to persevere and believe He is with us in this trial and journey of our God-sized dream.
Thank you for your encouragement; praying for you as well.
thanks for the encouragement – I’m going to read that chapter in Daniel as I need a real boost. My mom is in rehab – 90 years old with dementia – broke her hip and is having difficulty getting back on her feet and walking. She’s due to be released in a couple weeks and we have nothing in place yet for help, as at this time she can’t get herself up and down and around, and she can’t afford full-time care on her social security. I’m so stressed over this, worrying about how we’re going to handle it so she doesn’t need to be in a nursing home, which we said we would never do. My sister and I are at odds over a lot of what needs to happen which makes it all that much more stressful.
I believe God will show up in a big way – we’ve already seen results of prayers going up for her – so I know He won’t desert us. We always want things in our timing, yet knowing God’s timing is perfect. Please pray we’ll get through this – I’ve never been through anything this difficult and I don’t want to risk my health over it either, but am just trying to lean on God and trying to stay calm and know that it will all work out.
Thanks for your post!
Stephanie,
Thank you for this post! It was passed to me by a dear friend.
I, too, found strength to persevere when I found a piece of paper in my bible that at some point I had simply wrote “James 1:12”. I looked it up and God reached out and gave me hope. I was going through a divorce at the time.
I pray your dreams come true. God’s richest blessing to you.
Thank you for the reminder of James 1:12 – I needed that today. It’s been a rough few years (moving mom to be close to us, then nursing home, then dad moving closer, then dad dying, then mom being injured and ultimately dying as a result of the accident) then the final act the losing of my job that I had held about 22 years just over 2 1/2 years ago and not being able to get another one has me questioning God’s plan at time when frustration comes in from money issues.