In the months following Promise Keepers, the Lord moved me into a season of learning the importance of being still and waiting upon Him. This was not a time of inactivity, but a time when I was learning how to rest in Him through the circumstances that came my way. These were extremely difficult, lonely, and necessary lessons to learn for my growth. It was not my nature to be still, to wait, and to remain idle; I kept hammering at God with absolutely no answer! I continued crying out to God, waiting for Him to show up on the scene and fix things, but nothing happened, and I became more and more frustrated. Needing Him every day, I would ask Him where He had gone. It was like a scene from a long family road trip with the kids in the back of the vehicle incessantly saying, “Are we there yet?” and the parents finally uttering a simple “No.”

After some time the Lord would answer me by directing me to Psalms 46:10a, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Not particularly liking this response, I continued to grumble, so God used an e-mail from my cousin to get His point across in a different way. The e-mail had a poem called “Wait” attached to it; check it out.

Wait

Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried,
Quietly, patiently, lovingly God replied.
I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate,
And the Master so gently said, “Child, you must wait.”

“Wait? You say, wait!” my indignant reply.
“Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!
Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?
By Faith, I have asked, and am claiming your word.

My future and all to which I can relate
Hangs in the balance and YOU tell me to WAIT?
I’m needing a “yes’,” a go-ahead sign,
Or even a “no” to which I can resign.

And Lord, You promised that if we believe
We need but to ask, and we shall receive.
And Lord, I’ve been asking, and this is my cry:
I’m weary of asking! I need a reply!

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate
As my Master replied once again, “You must wait.”
So, I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut
And grumbled to God, “So, I’m waiting…for what?”

He seemed, then, to kneel, and His eyes wept with mine,
And he tenderly said, “I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens, and darken the sun.
I could raise the dead, and cause mountains to run.

All you seek, I could give, and pleased you would be.
You would have what you want — But, you wouldn’t know Me.
You’d not know the depth of My love for each saint;
You’d not know the power that I give to the faint.

You’d not learn to see through the clouds of despair;
You’d not learn to trust just by knowing I’m there;
You’d not know the joy of resting in Me
When darkness and silence were all you could see.

You’d never experience that fullness of love
As the peace of My Spirit descends like a dove;
You’d know that I give and I save…(for a start),
But you’d not know the depth of the beat of My heart.

The glow of My comfort late into the night,
The faith that I give when you walk without sight,
The depth that’s beyond getting just what you asked
Of an infinite God, who makes what you have LAST.

You’d never know, should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that “My grace is sufficient for Thee.”
Yes, your dreams for your loved one overnight would come true,
But, Oh, the Loss! If I lost what I’m doing in you!

So, be silent, My Child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to get to know Me.
And though oft may My answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer of all is still, “WAIT.”

—©Russell Kelfer

Still not fully grasping what He was trying to teach me and still not wanting to wait around for something to happen, I would continue to act independently of the Lord’s timing which always seemed to make matters worse. Waiting is difficult, but God always has a purpose in all of His delays.

Repeating this pattern again and again with similar results, I started to discover what He was trying to teach me. I came to the realization that it was ridiculous to think that I could outmaneuver God; so I started learning to hand over the reins of striving in my own strength and began to wait upon the Lord. I didn’t like it, but I did it. Not running headlong into your circumstances and waiting on the Lord requires courage not to lose hope or to lose heart. It’s hard to stand in God’s will, being quiet, calm and confident while your circumstances swirl around you.

I later understood that these seasons of silence were times of teaching, not periods of God’s displeasure with me. It was important to just wait upon God and be completely grounded in Him.

When life is punching you in the face, being in a period of waiting can is frustrating but when you come out the other side it can be very transforming. Here’s how; God makes us wait to reveal our true motives, to develop patience in our lives, to transform our character and to build intimacy and dependency upon Him.

Waiting is part of the process of becoming what God wants us to be. Are you in a period of waiting?