The Waiting Room

One thing I've begun to do more over the years is to tell my children a time to be ready, usually about 10 minutes before the time we actually need to leave.  It's something I think as moms we do naturally when our families are young.

I started to think about the reasons I do this, besides the fact that between 5 of us someone tends to be running late. Over the years I have grown to understand the children (while they are young and in training) are prone to disobey. It's best if I instruct them to be ready, so that when the time comes we can go!

I believe this is how Father is with us. Sometimes He gives us a vision, or perhaps a promise. Even after we obey, there may be a waiting period. Often as humans we give up on God, abandon our dream, or try to make it happen in our own effort. Perhaps we accuse Him, question whether He is in control or even exists! When we are young in Him, we waver in our faith.

The truth is that learning to wait is crucial to our faith. Not only does it develop the desirous virtue of patience, but there is an intangible gift intrinsically linked to our faith which is developed while waiting. That is hope. As He encourages us and confirms us with tangible proofs, we begin to know without a shadow of doubt that He will do what He has promised to do.

As we believe what God says, not being distracted by what we see and experience on earth, He gives us hope and it builds our faith. Soon we can be like Abraham and never see the fulfillment of the promise on this earth during our lifetime, but never stop believing it to be true.

Live like what God says is true!

Hebrews 6:15-20 Amplified Bible (AMP)
"15 And so it was that he [Abraham], having waited long and endured patiently, realized and obtained [in the birth of Isaac as a pledge of what was to come] what God had promised him.
16 Men indeed swear by a greater [than themselves], and with them in all disputes the oath taken for confirmation is final [ending strife].
17 Accordingly God also, in His desire to show more convincingly and beyond doubt to those who were to inherit the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose and plan, intervened (mediated) with an oath.
18 This was so that, by two unchangeable things [His promise and His oath] in which it is impossible for God ever to prove false or deceive us, we who have fled [to Him] for refuge might have mighty indwelling strength and strong encouragement to grasp and hold fast the hope appointed for us and set before [us].
19 [Now] we have this [hope] as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul [it cannot slip and it cannot [a]break down under whoever steps out upon it—a hope] that reaches [b]farther and enters into [the very certainty of the Presence] within the veil,
20 Where Jesus has entered in for us [in advance], a Forerunner having become a High Priest forever after the order (with the rank) of Melchizedek."