Ultimately, It's About Trusting God

What is?

Everything.

I've known this for a long time, but it's been coming up a lot lately.

I'm reading The Battle Belongs To The Lord by Joyce Meyer, and let me tell you - it's good. I'm only a couple of chapters in, but it is already worth it's weight in gold.

One of the things she talks about a lot is waiting on the Lord. Was that a collective sigh that I just heard? Oh, I've been there, friends. Honestly, I'm perpetually there in some way, shape or form. I feel ya. Every time I find myself in that place, AGAIN, I think, "Hmmmm..... Really should of learned this lesson last time." I honestly think Waiting On The Lord is a class that we, as believers, will NEVER graduate from in this lifetime. I think it will get easier, as we either A. graduate to the next level. or B. retake the class that we fail. (Ask me sometime about my four summers in a row of waiting on God for basically the same exact thing. It's a great story, now that's over.)

Joyce says, "the sooner we depend entirely on God, the sooner we will have the victory."

What are you trying to control? As a dear friend says a lot, (which is funny, considering this post that was written long before I met him) what's in your hand? What do you need to lay at the feet of Jesus, so He can bring the victory, like He has been waiting to do?

Any time I'm talking with a friend who is struggling with something, or working through something of my own, I (we) can always trace a straight line back to something that I've (we've) not surrendered.

Joyce talks about how the enemy whispers and sometimes screams in our ears, "What are you going to do?"

For someone who has always been the git 'er-done type in life, that is the right question to send me off in the wrong direction. How can I fix this? How can I control it? How can I make it what I want it to be?

But God says, wait. Let me do it. I already know what I'm going to do. It's all planned out. My way is better. You will benefit more, it will have a happier ending and you won't be as exhausted at the end. Let ME be God. You're terrible at it.

And He's right. What are you waiting for? Or holding onto? Or holding out for? Don't give up! Know this: No matter what it is, it's truly about trusting God, and you can DO that! It's easy. Look at His track record. It speaks for itself.

I think the hardest thing to wait for is for God to change someone else's heart. I have been praying for God to move in the life of someone VERY important for a long time. I have the 5 year old journals to prove it. I speak from experience when I say, the sooner you take your hands off of it, the sooner God can do what He does. I can also speak from experience when I say, we miss the lesson when we don't lean into God in those times of waiting and learn what God has for us to learn, and allow Him to make us more like Him while we wait. When we try to bring about change that only God can bring about, we miss the opportunity to see how He can work ALL things together for our good.

There are lessons in the waiting, and though they are not fun to learn, they are the lessons that we will never forget. They are the lessons that we carry for the rest of our lives.

In everything, wait and trust. Trust and wait. He is so faithful, you will never look back and think, shoulda done it my way.

I pinky promise.