I am in a waiting season.
Waiting seasons are full of many conflicting emotions including uncertainly, cynicism, doubt, elation, disappointment, excitement, frustration, and more. In general, it is such a confusing season that it's amazing when you manage to keep your head on straight, as your world is pulling you in a hundred different directions.
What's interesting is that I'm finding though conversations with my friends that these feelings are so common to almost every person at a point in their twenties, which can be a much more confusing time than high school! No one prepares us for our twenties. I hope I can change that for future generations, so they aren't as frustrated and scared about their future as I am sometimes!
If any of you have felt the emotions of a waiting season then you know how difficult it can be. I still don't quite know how to handle this properly, and perhaps I won't know until I am out of this season looking back on what I did well and could have done differently to "wait well". There are so many truths in the Bible about waiting, and I hope to share with you one passage, hopefully to help you find comfort in your waiting season, whenever that comes.
Romans 8 has a wealth of knowledge, but I'd like to draw your attention to verses 22-28 (I like The Message, but please use the translation that you understand best).
22-25All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
26-28Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
[bible.com]
I am consistently in awe of this verse each time I revisit it-and I really don't even need to explain it in detail, because it is written so clearly. Waiting makes us stronger and healthier. And when we don't have the strength in the waiting, God promised us the Holy Spirit to help us when we can't do the work any more.
I hope through this Holiday Season, and this Waiting Season, you can turn to God for your strength. It is so much easier said than done, but I can promise you his comfort and strength is greater than we can ever truly imagine.
I challenge you this while you're in Christmas Rehab this week to open your Bible and your prayer journal and take a few extra minutes to dwell in God's presence without any expectations from yourself and from Him. Just allow yourself to be for a while, and meditate on his word.
Happy Christmas Eve's Eve friends! I'm really enjoying this blog challenge so far, please let me know how you think it's going below :)
Jordan
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