Good Thursday morning! We like to have it all under control. Faith works best when God has it all under control. However, if we could see the future laid out before us as God does, then there would be no call for faith. Faith is strengthened through trusting God during our trials. One trial that all of us will experience is that of simply waiting on the Lord. This waiting usually involves that most frustrating thing called 'not knowing'.
You may arrive at a church meeting and 'gasp' get called on to present your thoughts on Mark 13. Yeek! When was the last time you even read that chapter? Imagine for a moment reading the chapter, and then waiting on the Lord. The group stares at you; you stare back. Suddenly, one among the group, we'll call him Peter, blurts out, "Well?" You might feel spotlighted, but who did not bear up under the trial of waiting on the Lord? Sometimes our waiting on the Lord may involve waiting on someone else waiting on the Lord.
In your work, you may enjoy the attention of project managers and project coordinators and other folk who seem to have no better function than to make charts and time lines and ask all sorts of questions. In my writing I thought that it might be useful to begin my projects in the same way. Only one problem with that: How does one chart the Lord's timing? The Lord does not say that on Dec 31st of 2012 this and that will be done or started or that the Mayan calendar will be proven correct several days before that. Why would the Lord go by one of man's calendars anyway? We want the Lord to go by our own calendar, but throughout history He has shown time and time again that His own timing is what He will use. Waiting on the Lord means that I do not know the date, but faith says that I do know the Lord will do as He promises.
This is important when it comes to obeying the Lord's command not to worry about tomorrow. Many a day I have thought that on the next tomorrow I would do this or that. And just as many a day, the Lord has planned something else for my tomorrow. In fact, I am learning, slowly I'll admit, that it is best to just give up my plans to the Lord and wait to see what the day brings. I can plan and I can ask the Lord to bless my plans, but in the end, the Lord's plan is the one fulfilled. The best I can do with my plans is to seek agreement with the Lord's plan. Prayer is the way we seek guidance from the Lord to get in line with His plan. Faith is how we wait on the Lord's timing for that plan to unfold. Faith also remembers the Lord's promise of provision and strength.
Praise the Lord for this day of waiting on Him!Bucky
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