Faith in the Wait

Waiting has become a theme in our family for the past few months. We have spent hours (or maybe even days) in waiting rooms. We’ve waited for appointments, phone calls, test results, and healing. We just returned from (hopefully) one of Elyse’s last doctors appointments for her neck. Her incision is finally healed, and we can officially retire the head wrap bandage. We have waited 3 weeks for the incision to heal from the inside out. It has been a long process, and Elyse has been a real trooper. What is the next step, you may ask? Well, now, we wait. We wait and watch her neck to see if she has a recurrences of the infection in her lymph nodes. We wait to see if any more cultures come back giving us a clue to the source of her infection. Most importantly, we wait on God.

Why is waiting so hard? It is hard because we feel out of control, and I do NOT like to be out of control! It is during this time of waiting that Satan fills our head with all the “what if’s” and scary possibilities that could be lurking on the other side of the wait. Psalm 27:14 says, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Verse 37 even tells us to wait “patiently” for him! Satan wants us to be anything but patient. He wants us to ask questions like “Why can’t we get an answer NOW? Isn’t God listening to us? Does He really care about my situation?”

So, why does God ask us to wait on Him? He asks us to wait because it is during this time of waiting that we have to make a choice. We either have to choose to put our total trust in Him or we put our trust in ourselves. If we put our trust in ourselves or in other people, then we will continue to feel out of control and stressed out . However, if we choose to put our faith in God, we can rest assured that He is in control. We can have hope instead of stress. If we put our faith in God, then He will use the waiting time to refine us, to strengthen us, and to renew us. Hebrews 10:23 tells us to “hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” So, who would be crazy enough to choose stress over hope, chaos over peace, and doubt over faith? I do…almost everyday.

I think it is time to make a different choice. Why wait?