Working in the Waiting

Sorry for such a long delay in posting…it’s been a crazy past few months. Not necessarily crazy because of schedules, but because of thinking…a lot of thinking. Asking the questions that every college student has had to ask at one time or another: “Where am I going? Am I where I should be? What do I want my future to look like? What do I love to do? How can I spend my time wisely?” These questions are very necessary, but also exhausting.

Not only me, but my whole family is in a period of waiting. Waiting what the future holds, waiting for our lives to finally take off in the way we had always imagined. For a while, I was really bummed that a part-time job didn’t work out for me this summer; but now, I’m actually really grateful it didn’t. The free time I have is being spent with my family, being with the Lord, praying, painting, redoing my room, and other things that are giving me a fresh mind and renewed heart. The Lord always knows what He’s doing, even if we’re left a little confused for a while. J

The Lord is now beginning to show me what the attitude of my heart should be. My soul should be full of praise, joy, and peace, not incessant worry and anxiety. Being concerned about the future is vital, I think, because otherwise we just wouldn’t care. But when our concern is paired with a lack of trust in God, then it becomes dangerous.

He’s also teaching me that instead of just wanting His answers, I should want Him. Is not the Lord so much greater and more satisfying than having all the answers? Sometimes our response seems to be, “well…no actually. I’d rather have the answers!” It’s understandable to feel this way, and it’s pretty much been my mindset for the past year. What I’ve realized, however, is that living and loving Jesus is so much more rewarding and joyful than just calling on Him when we’re confused. He is so incredibly worth loving, because He so radically loved us first.

Instead of praying for a way out of the waiting, I’m starting to pray for God to work in the waiting. (And let’s be honest, despite my slow catching-on of this, God has already been working in me without me even knowing. He’s always ahead of us. J)

If you’re like me, waiting for wisdom, answers, or even just a hint of what to do next, pray for the Lord to reveal Himself to you now. Just because you’re waiting for the future to look a little clearer doesn’t mean you should ignore what’s happening in the present. There’s a lot we don’t know yet, so we might as well spend our time wisely in the time we’ve got right now. What did Gandalf say? “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

Don’t wait to fall in love with the Lord. Get a move on that now.

Here’s an encouraging word about this from the great C.S. Lewis:

“And now we begin to see what it is that the New Testament is always talking about. It talks about Christians ‘being born again’; it talks about them ‘putting on Christ’; about Christ ‘being form in us’; about our coming to ‘have the mind of Christ’.

Put right out of your head the idea that these are only fancy ways of saying that Christians are to read what Christ said and try to carry it out – as a man may read what Plato or Marx said and try to carry it out. They mean something much more than that. They mean that a read Person, Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you. It is not a question of a good man who died two thousand years ago. It is a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has. At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods. Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, and knowledge and eternity. “(From Mere Christianity)