Silas
Beloved of All
You have put your finger on something deeply true, and I want to encourage you in it. The waiting you described is not empty time. It is the very environment where God does some of His most important work. We are so often in a hurry, trying to help God out, thinking we can improve on His timing with our own efforts. But the patience of hope, learning to rest and wait upon Him, is the foundation. That is where He develops in us a maturity we could gain no other way. The trial of your faith, right now, is working patience. And patience, having its complete work, is what makes you whole and wanting nothing.
It is not about striving to be righteous enough for God to move. That is where we all stumble. We start in the Spirit, trusting His grace, and then we try to perfect ourselves in the flesh. But whatever God gives, He gives on the basis of your believing in His grace. He looks at you through Jesus Christ, and when you simply believe Him to do it, He counts that faith for righteousness. You do not have to work to earn His blessing or His answer. The work of God is this: to believe on Him whom He has sent. As you have said, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. That is where everything rests.
So why does the delay feel so heavy? Sometimes we limit God in our own minds because we have never seen Him work a certain way before, but the difficulty never lies with Him. He lives in the eternal, where everything is now. He sees the whole story while we see only a part. That same power that could bring you relief in one area is just as able to create something entirely new in another. Because God is not in a hurry. He is patient in working out His purposes, just as He was patient with Abraham until the promised son came, just as He has been patient with this whole world. The delay is not His failure to hear you; it is often His mercy, preparing you for something better or even using the waiting to draw others to Himself.
So when it feels like your eyes are failing from watching for His deliverance, go back to His word and let your soul rest in His promise. You can kick back in your spirit and say, “It is in His hands. God is going to take care of it.” Tribulation works patience, and patience produces experience, and experience produces a hope that does not disappoint. I can testify that looking back on the hardest testings, the places where I did not feel joyful at the time, I now see God’s faithful hand like never before. Knowing this, we can count it all joy, because He is using even this to make you perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
God’s law is written now on the tablet of your heart, and He accepts that love for Him. You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, and the Spirit bears witness with your spirit that you are a child of God. And if a child, then an heir. So let patience have its perfect work. The husbandman is waiting for the complete fruit of harvest, and God has great patience. You can join Him in that patience, sustained by a hope that is sure. Keep looking to Jesus, trusting His grace, and remaining usable in His hand. He will complete what He has begun.
It is not about striving to be righteous enough for God to move. That is where we all stumble. We start in the Spirit, trusting His grace, and then we try to perfect ourselves in the flesh. But whatever God gives, He gives on the basis of your believing in His grace. He looks at you through Jesus Christ, and when you simply believe Him to do it, He counts that faith for righteousness. You do not have to work to earn His blessing or His answer. The work of God is this: to believe on Him whom He has sent. As you have said, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. That is where everything rests.
So why does the delay feel so heavy? Sometimes we limit God in our own minds because we have never seen Him work a certain way before, but the difficulty never lies with Him. He lives in the eternal, where everything is now. He sees the whole story while we see only a part. That same power that could bring you relief in one area is just as able to create something entirely new in another. Because God is not in a hurry. He is patient in working out His purposes, just as He was patient with Abraham until the promised son came, just as He has been patient with this whole world. The delay is not His failure to hear you; it is often His mercy, preparing you for something better or even using the waiting to draw others to Himself.
So when it feels like your eyes are failing from watching for His deliverance, go back to His word and let your soul rest in His promise. You can kick back in your spirit and say, “It is in His hands. God is going to take care of it.” Tribulation works patience, and patience produces experience, and experience produces a hope that does not disappoint. I can testify that looking back on the hardest testings, the places where I did not feel joyful at the time, I now see God’s faithful hand like never before. Knowing this, we can count it all joy, because He is using even this to make you perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
God’s law is written now on the tablet of your heart, and He accepts that love for Him. You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, and the Spirit bears witness with your spirit that you are a child of God. And if a child, then an heir. So let patience have its perfect work. The husbandman is waiting for the complete fruit of harvest, and God has great patience. You can join Him in that patience, sustained by a hope that is sure. Keep looking to Jesus, trusting His grace, and remaining usable in His hand. He will complete what He has begun.
