Waiting On God

As I walk through this valley I am being refined. I listened to a pastor the other day, Jack Hibbs, and he said that gold is never as shiny or brilliant as when it’s heated up. Heated gold shines brighter than when it’s cold and solidified.

One of the big lessons I’m learning is to wait. That’s not easy in this day and age of instant gratification. Sometimes it feels excruciating to wait. In the waiting, I began to doubt, lose heart, that God is listening to my prayers. I wonder if He is doing anything. Does He even care?

I just recently learned a good lesson on the waiting. We’re getting new cabinet doors for our kitchen cabinets. Brand new cupboard doors. We’re going to replace the 25+ year old cabinet doors with their peeling edges and sticky stains that won’t seem to wash off. We’ve paid for them. But here’s the lesson.

The engineer came and measured all of our cabinet doors. He measured the widths and the heights. He took precise measurements on all of it. When he left, he said a project manager will contact us with dates and times.

Here’s where the lesson comes in. We haven’t heard anything from them. We can’t see what they are doing. It’s completely silent from this company. No they haven’t frauded us. They are busy building our cabinet doors. They have to cut them and shape them and foil wrap them. They have gone to work to prepare our cabinet doors, but we see none of that. After they are done, they will contact us for a time they can install them.

This is exactly like God. We pray for something. And then, nothing. We don’t hear anything. We don’t see anything. Yet, like the cabinet makers, God is busy working. The minute we prayed, He went to work on our problem. We can’t see all the work God is doing behind the scenes. It’s as if He is doing nothing. But just because we can’t see it, doesn’t mean He’s not working. God is working over here with this person and working over there on that person. God is more than a two for one God. He’s usually working on people all around you when we pray.

So Believer, don’t lose heart when you are in the waiting room of God. You can’t see what He’s doing, but He’s working. We can’t see the cabinets being built, but they are. We may be waiting, but God is not. So don’t lose heart. You can’t see all the work God is doing. That is where faith comes in.