Frustrated while you wait…

Could you imagine two sisters standing one next to the other being told by their Father that He had a gift to give each one of them, but they would have to wait for it. Both initially believed the father with the same level of faith, but one sister received the gift before the other. Yet still, the other sister sits while she watches her sister enjoy her gift as the years pass on by. Did the sister who received the gift first necessarily have a stronger faith than the other sister? This is not always the case. Believe it or not, having faith that’s able to stretch out years of waiting on God for something, takes more strength than just receiving what God has for you in a short amount of time. Still, some days it gets frustrating. You start wondering, ‘Did I really hear from God on that?’. When is this going to happen? Am I doing something wrong to delay this promise from coming? Why are you withholding things from me God?!’

“For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”

Psalm 84:11(KJV)

The thing is in my short little story is that we don’t know what’s going on with the Father. Clearly it took some time for the Father to prepare the gift for the first sister, so there might be a reason it is taking a while to give the gift to the second one too. A lot of times when we are not getting what we want fast enough, we tend to think that God is purposely withholding the thing we desire from us, especially if we sinned. I believe, however, based on what the Bible says, is that most of the time while you’re waiting, God is working.  One person in the Bible that I would like to focus on that had a hard time waiting on God’s promise to be fulfilled was Hannah.  Please read 1 Samuel 1.

Hannah was a great woman of God, who was pretty spoiled. She had a great husband, was known as a great woman of faith, and received so much love from her husband; he would give her double whenever they offered sacrifices to the temple, which was a great honor. She pretty much had everything being handed to her, except this ONE thing. She was without child and what was worse was she had an adversary who was mocking her for not obtaining what she knew was a godly request. How many times do we feel as though we are being blessed in every area of life, but God keeps holding back in those particular areas in which we want to receive the blessing the most? Yes, a double portion is nice and all. We all appreciate it, God, but there’s something that seems to be slipping through our fingers every time we ask God.  The whole situation seems as if it’s making us a mockery as a child of God because it has not come to pass yet!

Or maybe you are not like Hannah, but more like Sarah and Abraham. Sarah’s husband was extremely blessed, which caused her to be blessed, but there was one thing missing, yet again. God had promised that Abram would become the father of MANY nations and they had YET to receive ONE child! Maybe God has clearly promised you something, in their case they were promised a child, but years have flown by and this thing still doesn’t seem like it’s going to come to pass.  What do you do when God tells you something and you now have to wait on it? Do you constantly worry about this thing that God wants to do? Do you try to take things into your own hands like Sarah did because you think you’re smarter than God(read about that HERE)?

“Then they rose early in the morning and worshiped before the Lord, and returned and came to their house at Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her.  So it came to pass in the process of time that Hannah conceived and bore a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, “Because I have asked for him from the Lord.””

1 Samuel 1:19-20(NKJV)

In the scripture, we see that in God’s eyes there were no delays! There was no confusion on His part. He didn’t forget about Hannah nor did He forget about Sarah. No, the Word says He remembered them and fulfilled His word in HIS timing. So, what does that say to us? When God speaks to you that He is going to fulfill something, the ONLY thing you can do is wait patiently until He fulfills it. Everyday seek HIM out first and not whatever it is that you are waiting on Him to fulfill. God does not delay His Word and it will never return to Him void. If God has truly spoken it, trust and believe He will bring it to pass.

Whatever the promise was, there is no need to worry or fret about it, instead, all you need to do is just rest and act in obedience whenever God commands you to do so. Frustration only occurs because we refuse to trust in God and instead trust in what we currently can see. Don’t become so engrossed with what you DON’T have, that you cannot see what you DO have and, furthermore, cannot see that God is going to bless you even more!

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Matthew 6:33(KJV)