Hi, welcome to Girl Church!  I’m Debbie Wallace

Today we’re talking about WAITING.  Waiting — one of your favorite past-times, I know.  Don’t we just love to wait?  We wait in line, we wait in traffic, we wait for the right job to come along, we wait for someone to call us, we wait on that special text…Oh yeah.  Life is all about waiting.  And one of the toughest things you’ll ever do is WAIT ON GOD.

Yeah, waiting on God.  It’s absolutely one of the hardest things you’ll ever do, because we want to get up and go do it ourself.  You know, it’s like, Ok, God, I’ve got this.  What are we waiting for, let’s just go do it.  And sometimes God will kinda like, pull on the reigns, and He’s like, Not yet.  Not yet.  

Waiting on God is a BOLD MOVE OF FAITH.  It’s a BOLD MOVE OF FAITH.  And you might say, Well, how can WAITING — which sounds like doing nothing — be a bold move?  Oh, it is!  Waiting is a bold move of faith because it really exemplifies and demonstrates trust in God, and it’s one of the hardest things you’ll ever do.  

But you know, it’s important that we do so.  It’s important that we wait on God’s time.  Because the alternative to that is just doing it our way.  And I’ve done that, and I bet you have too.  I can just imagine that if you look back in your history, you’ll find some things that you’ve done when you got ahead of God a little bit, and you thought, I can make this happen.  Sometimes we do it because we’re just bored, and we want some excitement in our life, and we go out, and we bite off more than we can chew.  (laughs)  And it’s like, God said, I told you to wait!  You’re not doing this my way!

But see it’s important that we do it God’s way.  And I’m gonna tell you several reasons right now WHY YOU NEED TO WAIT ON GOD…

#1 — If you start it, you’ll have to carry through with your own strength.  You won’t be operating in God’s strength, you’ll be operating in your own strength.  So, do you have that much strength?  Cause if you start it,…

#2 — You’re gonna have to finish it.  See, God is not obligated to finish something that you started that He didn’t tell you to start.  So you start it in your own strength,…you have to carry through with your own strength,… and you have to finish it in your own strength.  Now I know, you might say, “Well, I’ll just quit!  You know, if I decide it’s not God…”  Oh, you can’t always do that.  No, sometimes you get yourself in a situation where you can’t just quit.  Let me give you an example….I’m talking to ladies today, this is a great example for women.  How many marriages are done in a person’s own strength?  How many times have we gone out there and said, You know, I’m tired of waiting, I’m just gonna make it happen.  This guy is not really what I want, but I think I can do something with him.  I’m gonna settle.  I know I’m settling, but it’s okay.  I want a family and I want kids, I’m gonna make this happen.  You get in there and you have a couple of children, and you can’t just quit!  It doesn’t happen like that.  So what it amounts to, when you do something in your own strength, you start it and you finish it in your own strength, and what that amounts to…

#3 — It’s a struggle.  It’s harder — omigosh, it’s so much harder.  If you would just wait for God and let Him do it the right way, it might take a little longer — it will take longer, almost always I can promise you — but it’s so much easier.  It’s so much easier!  I want to read you a scripture:

Ecclesiastes 3:11 — He has made everything beautiful in its time.  Also, he put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

Hmmm… So we can’t figure out God… is that what this is saying?  That we really can’t figure God out?  Yeah, I think that’s pretty much what it’s saying.  But God doesn’t want us to be able to figure Him out.  You know what, if we could figure God out, we’d be God.  And so we’re not!  God has a lot going on that we don’t know about — and that’s the thing about waiting, that there’s a whole lot going on behind the scenes that you know nothing about!  You don’t know about all the things that God may be doing to line up your situation that will be for your betterment — for your highest and best situation.  But instead of waiting on that, if you dash out there and do it in your own time, it’s like half-cooked.  You don’t know what God’s got for you.  

But this scripture says that we can’t figure out what God is doing.  And you know, it’s a good thing, because if we could we wouldn’t need faith.  See, that’s what FAITH is about, and that’s what TRUST is about.  God is a God of great revelation, but He’s also a God of great mystery.  God is a God of mystery, He loves mystery.  That’s why he hides things from us.  He wants us to come find them.  He wants us to seek Him and to seek after Him, and to search after Him, so that we will discover the mysteries in Christ that He’s hidden for us.  That’s sweet!  So when you think about your waiting time as a time of mystery, a time of unfolding, a time of activating your faith and trust, it really casts a whole different light on the game of waiting.

I can promise you this much…Every promise land has a wilderness.  We don’t like that.  Every promise land has a wilderness.  We have to go through a wilderness to reach every promise land in our life.  Ladies, if you’ve got something that you’re wanting from God…if you’ve got something that’s dear to your heart, and you’ve been believing for this thing for a long time — especially if you believe God has given you a promise — if you just believe that it’s yours, and this is something that you dearly want, then WAIT FOR IT.  Be willing to go through the wilderness of waiting and let God forge your character, because that’s what He’s gonna do.  He’s going to shape up your character, and He’s gonna change you and develop you, so that when you do get to the promise land, you’ll be big enough to master it.  And it won’t master you.  You’ll be ready for it.

So while you’re waiting, let me give you a couple of things to remind you of, to do while you’re waiting.

#1 — God is gonna prepare you.  God is gonna prepare you.  He’s gonna forge your character in that time of waiting.  You know, God cares more about your character than He does your circumstances.  Most people can’t grasp that.  They just want their life fixed.  They just want — God, just fix it.  But God cares more about what’s going on IN YOU than He does about what’s going on AROUND YOU.  

#2 — Remember that IT’S A TEST.  It is a test!  It’s a test, and guess what — if you don’t pass it the first time, you’ll have to take it again.  And you can take this test over and over and over as often as you want to, if you insist.  Because listen, God needs to trust you.  God needs to trust you.  We always talk about, Oh, I want to trust God, I believe I’m trusting God.  God needs to trust you too!  This is not just a one-way street that we have with God.  God needs to trust us.  So, it’s a test.  Every waiting period that you have in your life is a test.  Do I trust God?  Do I believe that He’ll do what He says He’ll do?  And do I have the kind of faith that I need to keep myself in this position of waiting and submission to Him, and until He decides to move me.  So yeah, it’s a test.  And I can give you another example of what it’s like to fail that test — and as women, we’ve been there and done that so many times… We decide we want to get married, and we go out there and — like the example I talked about earlier, we make it happen.  And we marry someone that we know maybe isn’t right.  Maybe he’s a little bit abusive, he’s verbally abusive…maybe he has a terrible history of addiction…or maybe he talks to his mother in a way that you know is not right — whatever, there’s all kinds of red flags going up everywhere.  But you think, Oh, I can fix this guy.  I’m gonna make this happen — and you do it, you know you don’t feel right about it, well you failed the test.  And eventually what happens is, you come around and you get a divorce, and God sets you up for another test.  Is she gonna wait on me this time?  And I have girlfriends (laughs) who have failed the test several times.  So we’re not judging here.  But I’m saying, be fair but be honest with yourself.  How many times have I failed this test?  And you know, I want to get it right.  I want to get it right this next time.  If God gives you another chance, get it right the next time!  

So what do we do while we’re waiting?  Because I can tell you now, it’s NOT NOTHING.  We don’t mean waiting as in (strums fingers) — “Well, I’m waiting on God.”  No, we’re not doing that.  We are going to be busy.  I’m gonna give you some things to do while you’re waiting…

#1 — Pray.  Develop a great prayer life.  Deepen your relationship with your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  

#2 — Learn.  Get better!  Whatever it is that you’re waiting for, prepare yourself to do that thing the very best, and be the kind of person that can meet that challenge.

#3 — Serve.  Serve others.  You know, there’s a principle in the Word of God called SOWING AND REAPING.  Sow something so that you can reap a harvest.  So whatever it is that you’re wanting out of life, plant a seed.  Plant a seed.  If it’s a business that you’re after — or whatever it is that you want — just find somewhere that you can serve that is related to that.   Plant a seed.  If you can’t find a place to serve in that particular arena, just serve in your church somewhere.  Or find a place in your community where you can go down and volunteer some hours.  Give somebody a ride, whatever it takes.  Whatever it is, serve and help others.

#4 — Keep believing.  Keep believing.  Don’t ever give up hope, don’t ever quit.  God is a God of people who refuse to quit and say, I am absolutely in as long as it takes, I’m in for the long term — and develop that kind of endurance that will give you that long-distance stamina.  

#5 — and this is a big one:  JUST REST AND ENJOY YOURSELF.  Learn how to trust God and just enjoy His company.  And learn to rest.  You know, when you really trust God, when you really trust Him, you can rest in His Presence.  You won’t be striving about, When is this gonna happen?  God, why is it taking so long?  God, how are You gonna do this?  And what’s gonna happen?  And God why?  And God when?  And God where?  — Just drop all those questions and trust God.  He will make it happen when the time is right.  

Thank you for joining me today.  I look forward to seeing you next time.