T
hat seems like a wacky title even to me!
Why would I have to fight, why not just wait?
Waiting, as I have found out in the past eight
years isn’t easy; and especially waiting on God to
work out His will for what we have asked Him,
is a tall order for our veritably impatient human
nature.
When I was about to graduate from college I
made a few heartfelt prayers about my life’s
direction. I knew that some would be answered
soon after and they were. I also knew that some
would take a bit of time and I was prepared to
wait for a little while (operative word being ‘little’).
Well I just didn’t reckon on eight years!
I always pictured Job as waiting patiently and
serenely for the Lord to vindicate him with this
saintly halo adorning his head. There was old Job
sitting on a smooth stone looking rather solemnly at his sores and listening to his friends with a
bored tolerance, as they continued insistently to
insinuate that he had something to do with his
present calamity. I figured him sitting and biding
his time silently looking unto heaven till his help
came. Well, I figured wrong! Because after waiting for eight years I know that there has hardly
been any saintly tolerance on my part.
I gain a deeper appreciation, for “Jobwaiting” can be a messy affair!
Job, I am now sure, must have fought his very
sanity, self-doubt, crippling fear, frustration, his
friends, his own wife and the presently painful
circumstances to keep the faith and hope alive;
that God would come through.
There are mornings when he could have woken
up and told God, ‘Father, please just come
through today, even now!’. There are other days
he must have thought that his wife’s appeal for
him to curse God and die might not have been
such a bad idea at all.
Still on those mornings when his friends taxed
him endlessly on what he’d done to bring such
misfortune on himself, he might have actually
doubted his own love and devotion to God.
And yet facing all this frustration from
within and without, he resolved to wait
on God.
The years of waiting have been eye-opening to
me. In this span of time I have floundered between quietly waiting, begging, cajoling, crying
and even issuing threats to my Father so that
He would answer my prayers. There are times I
have waited quietly, and there are many when
I have done my round of tantrums. There are
times when I know without a doubt that God is
for me and there are others when I have doubted
whether He even knew me! I have questioned my
salvation, I have wondered whether there might
have been anything that I did that has prevented
God from giving me my heart’s desire.
In this season, some of my relationships have taken a toll for the worse too. Some I have ruined
because of my fears and doubts, some because
of the fears and doubts they added to the situation much like Job’s friends at one point. In this
same season, I have gained lifelong friends who
are steadfast in their faith and love for me. In this
season, I have deliberately walked into sin and
sought other alternatives to ‘answer’ my prayers.
It hasn’t been pretty, waiting.
Through all this, I have kept faith that there was
STILL something that my Father could make out
of all this mess of waiting and grant my request
of many years ago!
I have fought to believe in the midst of
my weakness.
That again, is His doing. And now I think, NO;
I know that He answers me. There is the faint
trace, slowly working its way to a bold hue of
answered prayer. I wait!`
Page 35