
To Your Impatient Heart: His Promise is Still True
June is unbearably long. The sun is up from the moment my alarm goes off, the heat bears down by midmorning, and I am impatient for a taste of respite. The days stretch on and on and on and by the time 3 o’clock rolls around and I’m jonesing for another cup of coffee, I wonder if it will ever end. I try to make dinner without using the oven because that only makes things worse and at bedtime, I spend several minutes trying to find that delicate balance between dying of heatstroke if I’m under the sheet and hypothermia if I’m not. The winning combination is heatstroke with a frozen right foot. A few short hours later, the sun rises and the oppression of the heat begins again. But as any true Michigander can tell you, Summer ends and Winter arrives right on schedule.
But Summer isn’t the only season I am waiting for the end of.
Between infertility, pain, and deployments, the heat of life bears down. I am wandering through the desert like Abram and Sarai, waiting for the land that God will show me. I know He has promised goodness but that plan is pulling me far out of my comfort zone into uncharted territory. There isn’t a step in my past where I have been left stranded. I know all of this in my head but, also like Abram and Sarai, my heart is aching for the fruit of God’s promise.
Because out here, the wilderness stretches on and on and I have no idea where the end is. I could be a few steps away or I could be wandering for several more years. It is overwhelming to not know when or where I’m supposed to put my roots down and it might be the uncertainty that gets me most of all. But if I wasn’t uncertain, would I have to trust in God?
If my heart was always so sure that my feet would land exactly where I desired and that my steps would follow all of my carefully established plans, would I ever had a need to trust? The trust is only activated when there is a need. And there is only a need when things aren’t going my way. If God’s plan was Bailey’s plan, He probably wouldn’t be a very good god.
Pressing on when our hearts are being burned is the only way forward through the heat. So we must recall the promises of God and keeping walking even when we can’t see the future.
To my impatient heart, and to your impatient heart, His promises still remain true. As true as the promise of a child was to a barren, old woman who gave birth. Even after she had doubted and tried to force her own plan, God was still faithful to her and to Abram and to His promise.
Recall His goodness and remember His faithfulness in your life and in others. During these mundane, ordinary days, we must press into who He is. He is Jehovah-Jireh, the God who provides. The God who sent and sacrificed His own Son to atone for our sins will provide for us.
He is going to be faithful to His promises to you and the timing will be beautiful.
So don’t lose heart, friend. Because His promise is still true and His faithfulness remains, even when we falter. So we cannot grow weary. The summer will end and we will reap the harvest of His goodness.
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The Comments
Ayanna @ 21FlavorsofSplendor
Love this!! I have many desert-like experiences in life and like you despite it all, I was never left alone. Patience is definitely something we all must learn and trust that God’s plan is always better than ours.
Bailey
Ayanna @ 21FlavorsofSplendorThank you, Ayanna. The desert is a rough place to be but I know He is faithful.
Nicole
Very inspiring, I truly feel where you are coming from.
Bailey
NicoleThank you, Nicole.
Karen@LightlyFrayed
Thank you for sharing from your heart. You are so right that our need to trust would be eliminated if we always knew certainty. It is not easy to live that way when life presses in though, is it? Praying for your aching heart right now. Hugs.
Bailey
Karen@LightlyFrayedIt really never is. Thank you for the prayers and hugs.
Brandon Adams
Yep. That’s why God never gives us a Five-Year Plan. The plan isn’t really the point. Our trust in the heart of God is. Everyday that goes by without a plan, our faith muscles are strengthened a little more.
Bailey
Brandon AdamsAmen. The “plan” is definitely building our trust in and reliance on God.
Rosie Williams
Ahh yes. The waiting. Often so hard. But very necessary to allow God to fulfill HIS purpose in the wait. My first book will be released this Fall. It has been a labor of love and no doubt a waiting process. His plans are always perfect as is his timing. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I pinned it. Blessings.
Rosie Williams
http://www.nuggetsfromtheheart.com
God’s Word to the Waiting: Scripture to Encourage Your Heart Towards Patience
[…] The pain of this world does not feel momentary and rarely does it feel light. That’s what we fix our eyes on Jesus. When we are gazing on the Savior, we see the big picture, that the unseen is the eternal and this visible world is but a moment. We are training, prepping for the weight of the glory that we will bear. […]