Victory In The Wilderness - Helen RobertsSample

Waiting

Do you like waiting for things? I know I don’t. Recently I was in an automated phone queue and the more the recorded voice thanked me for my patience, the more impatient I felt!

Extended times of waiting can become energy sapping, as the proverb observes:

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12)

Some early gynecological difficulties in my life left me aware that I might find it hard to conceive. Although my husband, Tim, and I conceived after just five months and had a wonderful daughter, I then suffered secondary-infertility and an extended season of waiting. Yet, God clearly promised that we would have more children – plural! The path was difficult to walk as weeks turned to months, and months to years, each new day facing the disappointment of unanswered prayer.

A breakthrough came in my heart when I realized that waiting for children was not about me, but about them. The words of David’s well-known psalm were just as true for my unborn children as they were for me:

“You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” (Psalm 139:16)

I realized that God already knew my children. This helped me understand that the waiting was not designed to frustrate me – it just wasn’t His time yet. I had to learn to not get in the way of the Lord’s purposes by making it all about me.

Five and a half years from the birth of our first child, Bethany, Hannah was born. Then, after a speedy twenty-one months, David was born and our family was complete.

We need to recognize that our God-given dreams are not just about us and more about what God desires to accomplish. Remember the famous dreamer, Joseph? He had a number of divinely inspired dreams, but made the mistake of thinking they were all about him. They came to pass, but not without many years of waiting. In the end, Joseph saw the bigger picture (see Genesis chapter 45).

What are you waiting for? What dreams have you had that have not yet been fulfilled? Today, give God your dreams again and ask Him to give you His. Allow Him to show you how to be victorious in the waiting.