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I don’t know about you, but I am not the most patient person. I like things to be moving, clicking. I like it when cars in front of me move fast and when things are going forward at work. I hate waiting, especially when waiting doesn’t look productive or when waiting means more than a few days. When waiting interrupts my neatly planned schedule or blocks some long-held dream, the ire rises in me.
When waiting drags on indefinitely and goals are placed on hold, when I wonder if things I have longed for will ever materialize, that’s when I find myself saying to God, Come on already! What gives? I am ready for my break. I am ready for my breakthrough. I am over the breakups and the breakdowns. What’s taking so long? You know I am all over that next plan you have for me, so bring it on!
But God isn’t impressed with my need for speed. He pulls up a chair and listens patiently. He just lets me beat the air. He lets me get it all out. And then He says with a certain firmness in His tone, Nope. It’s time you do the little stuff. Keep on keeping on. I know the beginning from the end. No worries. You just be faithful in the small stuff right now.
But God?!
Little things. Small beginnings. There is that verse in Zechariah 4:10 about not despising all of that. There is a reason that the word “despise” is clearly used. It’s because some of us hate the thought of doing the stuff that holds no glory. Read the rest of this entry »
Have you ever been so perplexed, depressed, frustrated that you can’t even stand to see your negative thoughts put down on paper?
So many thoughts have been swirling in my brain this month as I adjust to a new place and to often perplexing and sometimes unpleasant circumstances. And though writing has typically helped me in the past to plunk those difficult musings on paper as something tangible and therapeutic, lately scribbling anything about my pain and sorrow—even in a journal no one will read—has been something I have been avoiding at all costs.
Why is that? Why do I want to escape from my thoughts? Why do I run away from the pain? Why is it so hard sometimes to face the dross I see God pulling out of me?
Before I came to this season of wilderness, I was excited about change, excited about new, excited about great things God was going to do in and through me. But that was before the realization that change meant I would have to change—not my circumstances, not frustrating people around me, like the slow driver ahead or the thoughtless person in line at the grocery store. No, it meant I would have to change. Read the rest of this entry »
I have been thinking a lot about Old Testament Abraham and his original call from God when he was called Abram. It’s written done in the book of Genesis chapter 12.
“The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you” (Genesis 12:1, NIV).
What follows is God’s famous promise to make Abraham into a great nation: what many biblical scholars refer to as the Abrahamic covenant.
Abraham’s response is simple: “So Abram left, as the LORD had told him . . . ” (Genesis 12:4, NIV).
When we read this Scripture passage, we can quickly forget that God left out a lot of details about Abram’s transition– that is, until we are facing our own call to a new land. Read the rest of this entry »
I was chatting with my sister yesterday evening by phone, and we got on the subject of God and faith and our relationship with the Lord. I was trying to encourage her during those times when we don’t know what God is doing in our lives. And somewhere in that conversation, the Lord ended up encouraging me.
For some reason, I thought about the prodigal son, that familiar parable we read about in the Bible. And I reminded my sister that though we as Christians know how all those Bible stories end, the folks who actually lived those stories had no clue how the road of faith would bend before them. They didn’t know how long they would have to wait for their breakthrough. Read the rest of this entry »
We spend much of our lives waiting, don’t we? Waiting for the mail. Waiting for our paycheck. Waiting for the school year to end. Waiting for the traffic light to change.
And just when we think all that waiting is over, we end up waiting again – this time for different things. I am not one who enjoys waiting. But if life consists largely of doing just that, I know it would benefit me to learn how to wait well. Read the rest of this entry »
I was reading over the comments from yesterday’s Twelfth Hour Answers and something dawned on me. I kept thinking about the word emergency. And suddenly, I saw something. If you creatively break the word down into its parts, you get “emerge and see.”
And that is exactly what happens in the story of Lazarus later in the book of John chapter 11.
We learned yesterday how Jesus weeps with us when we mourn a loss, even when His greater purpose is to bring a miracle of life into our dead circumstances. We see Him do this with Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus. And we experience the same thing in our own lives when He suddenly shows up right when we think it’s too late for a dramatic change.
Now, we get to the rest of the story – the part where the emergency turns into the “emerge and see.” Read the rest of this entry »
Ever feel bewildered like Mary and Martha felt when they learned that Jesus didn’t come to heal their brother Lazarus as He had promised? (See John 11:1-32.) Ever felt like in that moment of utter disbelieve, your world just came crashing down? I have. In fact, I felt that way today.
Sitting at my kitchen table with a mountain of problems pushing at my peace of mind, I found myself teary-eyed and very much in the state of Martha. She couldn’t understand why Jesus didn’t show up at her brother’s time of need. At the moment of crisis, Jesus was a no-show. When Jesus did finally make it to the house – four days after Lazarus had died and that was purposeful – Martha was beside herself. I can imagine her being grief-stricken yet too weary to demand anything of the Lord. Simply in need of an explanation, she offered, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (vs. 21, NIV). Read the rest of this entry »
