Isaiah 40: 31

Johnny Douglas

One of my favourite Steve Martin lines is this: "I took a course in speed waiting. Now I can wait an hour in only ten minutes!!" Wow!
Not a skill yet mastered nor one that should ever be attempted!
Our society is so noisy and fast and on top of this we're becoming increasingly and fiercely independent. As God's children the cultural mould can so often shape us and influence us too easily, more than the value of God's Kingdom, because it's the later which involves the WAITING!

Life is a series of waiting cycles.
I want to suggest that this waiting principle is what God commands!
The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

It's not about slowing and stopping our processes and our bodies but that our essence and our souls would be stilled before God..David doesn't just stop on the outside but gets to the point of soul-waiting before God! With our deepest longings and truth resident in our souls, how great is the need for that waiting at the core of you! It's from here that unshakeable and true peace prevails in your heart as His precious child.

Is this investment happening in your life today? Is this bringing change to your week?
Those who wait shall have their strength renewed, so Isaiah reckons!! (Isaiah 40: 31) It's a certainty that God promises and will deliver on.

A waiting person is a patient person. It shows a willingness to be where we are in the assurance that something hidden there will emerge in God's good timing.

Patient living means actively living in the present through waiting. Don't run to the next moment but linger, wait, seek & trust in your present - NOW! We're invited to trust in God's character - His goodness and the reality that no good things will God with-hold from those who love Him. Will you challenge yourself to tend to your impatience by a willingness to wait on our true Fathers promises? God's timetable and ours are not the same; in wanting everything now, we view God as being late, yet will you trust that He is right on schedule according to His perfect and rightly-planned timetable? God's way is perfect.

Will you recognise that it's the waiting which drives us closer and makes us more reliant on God? With our lives swamped by an instantaneous society, waiting becomes more challenging. Will you choose to wait...?

The best part of waiting is you'll eliminate the possibility of missing God in the rush!
Will you wait for all God has planned for you?
Surely that's too good to be missed?
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.

ps Waiting / God-style is birthing hope and creative possibilities in me more than I've ever known before; this is my prayer for you!

> This article is dedicated to one of the greatest gifts
God has ever blessed our family life with; RJB - Thanks for modelling this; Shine On!