Have you ever spent so much time thinking about, praying about, stewing about, talking about, journaling about, and pondering about something that you end up not doing anything; you basically just sit and stare at a cold dead fire because you aren’t moving in any direction? This has been me for the past five plus months! I desire so much to make sure that I move in the so-called ‘right’ direction that I am not really moving in any direction. I have prayed for God to help me to see where my next step is and I thoroughly believe that He’s actually repeatedly came right out and told me what my next step is; however, because I have a tendency to doubt that I could possibly be understanding Him correctly, I started to take a step in that direction, only to retrack my step because I thought that I couldn’t possibly be any good at doing what I sensed Him leading me towards. I mean, I believe that my fear of failure has taken over and pulled my forward step backward a step; or ten. My doubts have led to me being a sitting duck on opening duck hunting day and the duck hunter has distracted me from what I truly know that I need to do, to get out of the swamp with my life. Distractions. Over-thinking. Not trusting my instincts. In some cases, waiting is the ‘right’ thing to do; like waiting on God, instead of flying off into the air into the line of fire and hoping that God will surround me and be my bullet-proof surroundings. In some cases, it’s vital that I wait on God’s next move and then the flight path will be drawn out and my protection secure.

I feel that I may be being too vague in my sharing. About five and a half months ago I had a change in my employment status and found myself praying about what my next step would be for employment; I began to ask God and myself questions like: What area do I explore for a position or job? Do I look for another job or do I take some time to seek God’s will and direction? Do I forget about what I have been doing and seek another avenue altogether, for work? And most of all, God what do I do now??? Over the course of a couple of months, I continued to seek God for direction and next steps, I applied for several jobs, had a few interviews, worked one week at a job, and for the past few months I have been watching my grand Littles three to four days a work for their mama to be able to work and not have a huge child care expense. What I haven’t mentioned yet, is that for the past probably five months, every time I ask God what He wants me to focus on or do; He very promptly tells me to write; or specifically, to write for healing or wellness. I started to make ‘my’ plans of how this would work and found myself with several distractions; some of which I caved to and I really haven’t been working towards writing much at all. It is very easy for me to spend a lot of time doing good things and not necessarily the ‘best’ thing that God may be directing me to.

Recently, I have felt convicted over not being obedient to God’s promptings to write and I now am seriously pursuing His plans instead of my own. Is this easy? Absolutely not! The distractions continue to come my way. The doubts continue to surface in my mind. The obstacles continue; and actually, seem to be larger than before.

Sometimes, waiting is good; when the waiting is for God to say it’s time to … . However, waiting is not good when it’s actually stalling in moving forward with God’s Will or more extreme; when the waiting is in open defiance of what God is leading His child to do. Over the years, I have learned that God will allow us to stay in a ‘waiting’ space (holding pattern) for a season because He is trying to strengthen us for what He has next for us. Through patience; and even trials in these seasons, we grow closer to God, learn more about His character and ourselves, and grow in our spiritual journey towards God. These waiting seasons can be an amazing time of learning, worship, and quiet time with our Heavenly Father; how great these times can be! But also, these seasons can be excruciatingly painful! The pain can come from not knowing what’s next; it can also come from the trials and testing that can come during these times. In these times, the greatest thing to me is knowing that I am not alone in my journey because I know from Scripture that God is so close to me that He is aware of my every thought, breath, and fear.

My personal life journey has has included several ‘waiting’ seasons that were full of tests and trials. While I have struggled more than once through these seasons, I have continually grown in so many ways because of them and I have taken comfort in knowing that my Abba Father is as close to me as He can possibly be, so I never have to walk the journey alone or be a ‘sitting duck’ out in the swamp wondering if I will make it out with my life. My life is not my own, it’s God’s and wherever this next step takes me will be taken by someone stronger than she was in the last step.

I was just reading about the calling of the prophet Elisha (1 Kings 19:19-21) and he is an example of someone so focused on being obedient to God’s Will for his next step that when the prophet Elijah threw his own cloak over the shoulders of Elisha; which signaled a transfer of power from Elijah to Elisha, Elisha immediately responded. When Elijah approached Elisha, he was plowing in the field with his 12 pair of oxen. Once Elijah threw his cloak over Elisha shoulders, the newly called prophet slaughtered his oxen, burned the equipment to cook the meat, gave the meat to the people, and off he went to be the attendant of Elijah. Elisha didn’t wait, he responded right away. I want to be a child of my Abba who does that! I am striving towards that!

The journey ahead begins with one step forward; no waiting, unless it’s waiting on God!

#waitingonGodornotatall