How do you feel about waiting? If there is someone who is meant to call you or to meet you for an agreed upon time, it can be very frustrating if that person is late. Waiting for someone to show up often results in growing consternation the longer that we wait for that person. When I was praying and talking things over with God this week, an insight came to me about waiting that I found helpful. I want to share this insight with you. I was reflecting that often when we pray, we wait what appears to be a long time for the answers to appear. Sometimes when we are waiting, we may begin to wonder where God is and when He is going to respond to what we have brought to Him. We are waiting for God’s action, but we are not waiting for God. It is a great source of reassurance to know that God is already and always with us .In Psalm 27:13, 14 we read, “I remain confident of this; I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.” So yes, we are waiting for the answers to our prayers that God will bring about, but we are never waiting for God. I want to remain confident like the writer of this Psalm that we will see the goodness of our LORD in the land of the living. While we are waiting for answers to our prayers around the effects of this pandemic coming to an end, God reminds us that we are not waiting for Him. He has been and remains with us all along. There is something else I was reminded of this week. Sometimes what we are waiting for comes sooner than we expected. This was the case with the first of the new local strawberries being available on Friday. I was surprised that they were early and we have already been able to enjoy the delight of fresh baked homemade tea biscuits with delicious strawberries and whipped cream. I didn’t think that would be possible for another couple of weeks. Please join for our WEDNESDAY PRAYER TOGETHER tomorrow June 9th at 1 pm. We can affirm our trust in God and the wisdom of His timing. We are not waiting for Him. Rather, we are waiting for what He will do. As we wait for God, we can even anticipate that the outcomes of our prayers may come sooner than we expected.
Looking for God to renew our strength in all our waiting, Pastor Lola
God, You are our God and You continue to give us reasons to praise You and to thank You. We want to trust the wisdom of Your timing. When we have waited for a long time for You to bring answers, help us not to give up. Remind us that we are waiting for Your answers, but we are never waiting for You. Please allow us to experience the reality of Your constant Presence with us. Sustain us with confident hope that we will see Your goodness our LORD in the land of the living. We admit that sometimes we lose sight of You because we become so focused on things working out the way we would prefer. Help us, we pray, to sink into trusting You for Your outcomes and not ours. It is only as we are convinced of Your love and care for us that we can release our hold and invite You to take control. In our waiting, please reveal Yourself to us in refreshing and life giving ways. Please give us sensitivity to others who are struggling with waiting for Your timing. Allow us to encounter You with them and to find mutual encouragement in the ways that You choose to answer our prayers. In this past week, You did reveal Yourself to us and we thank You for this. When we encounter You LORD, we find strength to keep waiting. We find ourselves craving and seeking awareness of You reliably with us. Give us eyes to see Your goodness here and now. Find us releasing all into Your hands of love and mercy. We do look for strength when our faith grows weak. We have been wanting to listen for You and to hear from You. When we do hear from You, we can take heart and face each day confident in You and Your rhythms of grace. We pray that our everyday conversations will reflect our trust in You and dependence on You. For those finding it hard to recognize that You are available to them every moment, please make that certain for them. There are times when we expected to wait longer for good outcomes. Thank You for those times when You surprise us with Your provision earlier than we imagined. Specifically God, we are thanking You for earlier availability of Covid vaccines for the second shot. We do ask for the organization involved in people being fully immunized. As we see some of the fear around this virus lifting, please ensure that none of us forgets how much we have needed You with us in all that we have faced. May what we have learned about waiting for Your answers to our prayers in these last months remain with us in the way we approach this gift of life You have given in days ahead. And now we do direct our prayers for healing of the pain of racism that has been expressed in what is being further uncovered about residential schools. We also come with prayers for healing of the ugliness of racism revealed through this hate crime in London where a Muslim family was deliberately struck down and killed. God, we call out to You to show us how to live lives of love in a world where the voice of hatred can seem so loud. We look to You and we wait on You for the ways that You will bring about Your justice and peace through us. We pray for the grace of Jesus. AMEN.