NLDC BACKSTAGE: JUNE 2007

Trusting God's Delays

If you ever find yourself in God’s waiting room, pacing around and waiting – for an answer, a change, a breakthrough, a miracle – you need to stop and remember something: God knows best. More than that, he’s never late, never in a hurry, and always right on time. When there’s a delay in your life, the best thing you can do is simply trust him to do what’s best.

A real encouragement to me over the years has been this verse from Habakkuk 2:3: “These things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, do not despair for these things will surely come to pass. Just be patient. They will not be overdue a single day.” God had his delays in mind from the start.

Delays are not necessarily denials. God’s ways are always better than ours – and his timing is perfect. Wait On the Lord for the Due Season

The King James Version of Galatians 6:9 says, "And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."

The Lord promises to bring the harvest, the answers we are waiting for, in due season. Because we don't know exactly when due season will be, many believers grow weary during the wait! They think, "Did I miss my appointment?" The Bible promises that God will never be late, but it doesn't tell us that He usually is early either!

Many times He is the God of the midnight hour. He is stretching our faith and teaching us to believe Him for greater things. Believing brings us right into the middle of God's rest. And during the wait our strength is renewed if we wait in faith instead of fear and frustration.

The type of believing that brings us rest when we are waiting for the Lord is this: "God, I believe You are smarter than I am and that You have a better plan than I do! I believe Your timing and Your ways are better than mine because Your thoughts are above my thoughts “(Isaiah 55:9.)

We must realize that God's timing is more accurate than ours will ever be. This will free us to abandon ourselves to God and say, "Lord, I would like to see the circumstances happening this way, but that doesn't seem to be happening. I'm not going to live my life in frustration from struggling to try to do something about something I can't do anything about or trying to make something happen that I'm obviously not making happen.

"I surrender. I give my idea, my timing, my wants and desires to You. Do what You want to do, the way You want, when You want. And I'm going to rest!"

When we wait on the Lord and He renews our strength, we become the kind of people the devil can't wear out. We can outlast the devil's attacks, standing against them until we receive the manifestation of our victory in due season.

Jesus said, Take away the stone. Martha, the sister of the dead man, exclaimed, But Lord, by this time he [is decaying and] throws off an offensive odor, for he has been dead four days! Jesus said to her, Did I not tell you and promise you that if you would believe and rely on Me, you would see the glory of God?" John 11:39, 40

If there are circumstances in your life that have been dead for so long they smell bad, take a simple, childlike stand and believe: "I don't know what God will do, but I believe He will do something."

No matter how long we have been in dead circumstances, when Jesus rolls away the stone and says, "Come out," that's a brand new beginning.

The Lord wants us to cast off our grave clothes and come out of our tomb, free from the restraints of the past and anything else that drains our strength like worry, fear, negativism, etc.

Instead of meditating on our problems, we can keep our minds and hearts focused on the Lord, trusting ourselves and our situation to God, in simple, childlike faith, waiting patiently for Him to act. If we will do that, He has promised we will witness the mighty manifestation of his glory — in due time, at the appointed season.

Testimony from the Road

This week, the girls stayed with a couple that had been married for a couple of years and had been trying to have children.

One night, the other two girls on my team were in bed (it was almost curfew) and the wife began to talk to me about this particular desire of her heart and how the doctor’s had told her that she had a very slim chance of having a child of her own. Her husband has two children from another marriage that live with them, but she started to cry as she talked to me about how much she wanted a child of her own.

It reminded me of a story about two farmers who were suffering through a drought and praying to God for rain. One farmer just stayed in his house praying and watching the skies while the other went outside and prepared his fields for the rain.

The question asked at the end of the story is which farmer had more faith?

As it turns out, the hostess had heard this story as well and she showed me a room they had prepared with a crib, bassinet, and some other baby furniture.

It was amazing to me that this woman could have so much faith in God and in His timing. I also find it amazing that God could use me to help minister to a woman through simply listening.

Sarah Hollenbeck