Worth the Wait

Well, she's still not here. I know she's coming, but she obviously isn't in any hurry. I'm sure my sister-in-law has had thoughts of just pulling her out at times, but when the time comes, the perfect time, my awaited niece, Georgia will make her entrance.

I don't know about you, but I have to remind myself of that quite often. It seems I've spent a lot of years in God's waiting room. Fortunately He has better magazines! But He has even more than that if I'm willing to look. Even today I had to remind myself that God has perfect timing. It was right after I got the e-mail that my non-fiction book had been rejected. Many of you may not know but teaching is my greatest passion. And for the last four years I've been teaching a series based on the Sermon on the Mount, called Storm Proof. It talks about how the one certainty we have in this life is that of storms. In Jesus' longest recorded sermon, The Sermon on the Mount that begins in Matthew Chapter five and ends with chapter seven, He ends it by saying that no matter how we build, whether like wise men or foolish men, we can be sure of three things: rains will fall, floods will rise, winds will blow.

I pitched this book a few years back thinking it was the right time for its release. Thinking the message was ready, surely someone would want it now. No one did. After years of reworking it, teaching it and taking it to a different level, I have decided to risk rejection again and put it out there. And today it received its first no. A very pleasant no, I might add. I was told that the men identified with it more than women. (Not necessarily a bad thing, except they plan on marketing it to women.) But once again I felt the "wait" button pushed.

I can tell you that I'm better at these moments then I use to be. Use to, God's "no", or His "wait", would send me into a tail spin. Have me trying to figure out how in the world I was going to get it accomplished without Him if necessary. Want to know how that worked out? I've had quite a few aborted dreams. Ever been there? Ever tried to help God out? Ever found life wasn't moving fast enough for you or happening the way you thought it should and found yourself deciding to make it happen anyway?

How do you think that would work with a pregnancy? And isn't that what dreams really are? Aren't dreams really babies so to speak living inside our soul? Aren't they things God has birthed inside of us so that one day our lives will be the conduit for them to impact the worlds we live in? I think they are. I think resting inside the soul of each one of us are dreams we are expectant with. Here is the perfect opportunity for men to give birth!
This is my first book in the window of Barnes and Noble-It was four years from the time of conception until delivery. The road was long, but worth the wait...
The danger is giving birth prematurely. And what does premature birth accomplish? One of two things. It either produces an aborted dream or an unhealthy dream. And of what value do either one of those have to God? I've always heard it said "God is never in a hurry." Hard to come to terms with that in this "hurried" life we now live in. Everything is expected immediately. He also has no concept of time. Remember this is the fella who said, "A thousand years is like a day and a day is like a thousand years." If I'm being honest, I find Him painfully slow. But if I'm also being honest. He has never been late.

I don't know what dream you may be holding inside of you today. Maybe it's been a dream for years. Maybe you've just discovered its even inside of you. But however longs it's been there, to rush it, to help it out, could possibly destroy it all together.

I also want to tell you this. I've learned something else in my years of waiting. I've learned that closed doors are as much God as opened doors. He promises us that "all things", not "some things", not "most things", not "a few things", but "all things work together for my good." So, that means even the doors that close on my dreams, are God simply saying, "Oh, I'm just not ready yet. I'm still developing lungs, and forming valves. I'm still finalizing fingernails and putting the finishing touches on your nose. I wanted to give you one that looks like your Father's." And when I see a closed door now, I simply see it as God making this dream inside of me even better. There can be no disappointment in that. Georgia is coming. But she's coming at God's appointed time. And to make her come any earlier than He has planned would be to mess with a divine order. The same is true with the dreams in your life.

And to those of you who have simply decided to hope no more because the waiting has been excruciating. May I encourage you today to hope one more time. When Sarah was told that she would give birth it was past even Viagra's power to help. The only thing at that point that could have helped would have been God. Maybe that is where He has been trying to get you and I. To a place where we know that only He can accomplish it. Sarah believed you know. She brought the hope back out, dusted it off and believed. She believed so much that she gave birth to her son, "even when she was long past the age for it". Why? "Because she considered [God] who had given her the promise, reliable and trustworthy and true to His Word."

If I can assure you of anything, I can assure you of this. God can be found trustworthy to His word. He is also trustworthy to His children. And He is trustworthy to the promises He has planted inside of us. May we be trustworthy in carrying them until He is ready for their delivery.

As I close, I wanted to share something with you. I was reading in Psalms 27 this afternoon and one of my favorite verses is in there, verse 13, which reads: "I would have lost hope, if I had not believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." And that is very true. There have been many times that I would have simply given up if I hadn't known in my "knower" that God had good for me planned in this life I'm living right now. But today I went farther to verse 14 and it reads: "Wait and hope for and expect the Lord: be brave and of good courage, and let your heart be stout and enduring. Yes, wait and hope for and expect the Lord."

What three better things to combine than these: Waiting, Hoping, Expecting.
I can't imagine God not showing up in the middle of that!