Week 4: still waiting

For the vision is yet for an appointed time... though it delays, 

wait for it: because it will surely come, it will not delay. 

Habakkuk 2:3

              Oh my Lord come and rescue this defeated discouraged heart of yours. Her heart is yours and she only wants you to have all of her and take all her junk and burdens and set her free and make her new. Why does she constantly doubt? Why is she so easily swayed by fears? Why is she strong enough to fight one battle, but daily lose the other? She tells herself that she is waiting... is she waiting for the wrong things? Is her hope in the wrong place? Is her motivation more selfish than selfless? Lord show her where she's lost, but help her find herself in YOU. Not in someone else, not in something else. Give her sight to see where her heart is stuck and how to let it be yours again. Show her the tools to fight the battle she keeps on losing. Give her strength to fight the discouragement and defeat she feels is already too close.

          Remind her that she's beautiful, that the way you created her is uniquely her, and that is exactly what you see as beautiful. Remind her that her physical self isn't what you want to be changed, to be improved, to be made beautiful... but it is the hidden heart within her that you want to renew, change, improve, make beautiful. Tell her that it is not the flaws of her body but the flaws of her nature that you want to renew and process into perfection. Remind her that these delays, these imperfections that she cannot seem to escape, were created to make her run into your arms... were created to force her to find her beauty and identity in you, in nothing else. 

       The power is yours alone God of the universe to give her beauty, to make her beautiful. The power is yours alone to set her free, to release her doubt and shame and make her whole, make her forgiven. The power is yours alone to encourage her restless, weary heart... the power is yours alone to lavish her in grace that is completely undeserved and she knows all to well how undeserved it is. 

       She is your daughter. She is adopted into the family of your church. She is uniquely needed and uniquely included. You made her, you formed her every piece. You love her. You call her daughter and relish in her smiles and her joys. You don't see her for all the things she does wrong and all the expectations she doesn't meet... you see her as your daughter, and you love her. When she's angry and she blames you, she blames herself, you still love her, you just want to hold her tight and remind her that you are faithful and your love never changes. When she feels like she's been waiting forever to feel your love, you remind her that it has been there all the time, and that she is looking in all the wrong places. When she thinks she has run too far away to ever really find herself at home once again, you tell her you've been preparing a place for her and you are waiting patiently for her to come back once again and trust that you will accept her and once again call her daughter. 

Delayed Blessings

In the charming little booklet, Expectation Corner, Adam Slowman was led into the Lord's treasure houses, and among many other wonders there revealed to him was the "Delayed Blessings Office," where God kept certain things, prayed for, until the wise time came to send them.

It takes a long time for some pensioners to learn that delays are not denials. Ah, there are secrets of love and wisdom in the "Delayed Blessings Department," which are little dreamt of! Men would pluck their mercies green when the Lord would have them ripe. "Therefore will the Lord WAIT, that He may be gracious unto you" (Isa. 30:18). He is watching in the hard places and will not allow one trial too many; He will let the dross be consumed, and then He will come gloriously to your help.

Do not grieve Him by doubting His love. Nay, lift up your head, and begin to praise Him even now for the deliverance which is on the way to you, and you will be abundantly rewarded for the delay which has tried your faith.

O Thou of little faith,
God hath not failed thee yet!
When all looks dark and gloomy,
Thou dost so soon forget--

Forget that He has led thee,
And gently cleared thy way;
On clouds has poured His sunshine,
And turned thy night to day.

And if He's helped thee hitherto,
He will not fail thee now;
How it must wound His loving heart
To see thy anxious brow!

Oh! doubt not any longer,
To Him commit thy way,
Whom in the past thou trusted,
And is "just the same today."
--Streams in the Desert

     Yes, Lord, I am still waiting. I am not giving up, I am not losing hope anymore. I am clinging to you will all that I am because you are all that I have. I have not learned this lesson yet, and you are waiting patiently until I learn it and until the truths I will uncover will give me strength enough to stand victorious and loved by the God who made this life and wants it only for himself. I don't want to grieve you anymore by doubting your love, I want to praise you even now for the deliverance that is ahead. I know you won't leave me in this place forever. I know that you are near and you are watching and you will not allow one trial to many, you will not let me be consumed by fear and failure, only until the point where it forces me to run into your arms again and then you will come, my Father, and wrap your arms around me and be my help. 

My words shall be fulfilled in their season(their fixed appointed time) Luke 1:20

.... though it delays, wait for it, because it will surely come