Kingdom Calling Blog…

God is really speaking to me at the moment about waiting on Him and trusting Him through this season of waiting and that everything happens in it’s time.

I have often struggled with waiting, as a slightly (cough, cough) impatient person and I have often rushed things in my eagerness and excitement.

Are you in a season of waiting?

I know that patience is one of the fruits of the spirit and I know that to develop the fruits of the spirit God allows us to go through seasons where He can develop them. As someone who struggles to be patient, God has been teaching me about patience. As I look back over the last three years I am so grateful for a God whose plans are better than anything I could imagine and that He hasn’t answered the prayers I’ve prayed in the way I expected (thank goodness, in hindsight) and hasn’t given me things I’ve prayed for yet, because quite simply I wasn’t ready for them. In his infinite wisdom God knew I wasn’t ready but I thought I was.

Does any of this sound familiar to you?

I have found that when God puts a dream in your heart, you want it so badly and this can lead to striving to make things happen, running around trying to do things in your own strength when all the time He is the one who orchestrates everything and if you try and run ahead of Him it can only lead to disappointment and a clear sign to Papa that you’re not ready and need some more work on your character.

I’m learning (slowly by the way) that the only thing I need to do to make things happen is to WAIT on God, keep still and seek His face.

Psalm 46:10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

He has been reminding me of His faithfulness and as I look back over my life I can see this so clearly. Even in the 13 years of wandering aimlessly in the wilderness His hand was at work orchestrating my life to bring me back to the point where I was desperate for Him.

I am confident because of this that He has started a work in my life that He will continue until the day that Jesus returns.

Phil 1:6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

I am a work in progress and He thankfully wouldn’t leave me as I was but continue to change and mould me until I look more like His precious son Jesus.

2Cor 3:18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

So, as I was contemplating all that God is saying at the moment He reminded me of a picture He gave me some time ago of big, red, juicy looking strawberries (hence the cover photo). The strawberries looked absolutely delicious and when you picture a ripe strawberry in your head they looked like that! You see them in the punnets and the great, big, juicy ones are usually on top tempting you.

When you consider growing strawberries you have much preparation to do and they take a lot of maintenance, keeping them at the right temperatures before they are planted out and they have to be kept covered for fear of predators that will come and kill them off. Extreme temperatures can damage them too.

Now as you may or may not know the strawberry season is April through to August but you can ‘force’ some fruits to produce early.  Interestingly, forced strawberry plants are left too ‘tired’ to use again after this method.

You may like me have rushed to get the first strawberries when you see them come into ‘season’ and arrive on the shelf of the supermarket. You get excited about how good they look or how they will taste and imagine what you will serve them with only to be left disappointed when you bite into one and it tastes of, well not much, mainly water!

So it is with us, we can seem to be ready on the outside to anyone looking in, saying all the right things and appearing to have it all together but when it actually comes to it we can’t deliver because we simply aren’t ready yet, not fully in season, pushing because we feel ready, but it’s too early. We have gone ahead of God and pushed to make things happen and have done it all in our own strength and ignored signs that the time wasn’t right because we want it so badly. Not just me I hope?

In ministry and in life in general this then leads to problems down the line because the foundations aren’t secure as God hasn’t finished preparing us.

The ground we are being planted into needs to be fully worked over so that when He plants us there we will flourish and grow strong and healthy. We have to be tended so that when predators come along we recognise them and know how to respond (lean into God). We need to trust the gardener who is an expert and has done this before, so many times.

I’m reminded of this scripture and that God has a perfect timing in everything we do in our lives and why should we mistrust the one who is faithful to see His good works completed in us.

Ecc 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

I have been in this season for what seems like a really long time, in my earthly eyes (but not to God) and it feels so hard and frustrating. You feel like you are the only one ‘stuck’ and that when you look around people are moving on or even worse (I’m being totally honest) getting breakthroughs in the very areas that God has put on your heart. You see them coming into opportunities that you would so desperately love to have. You imagine that if they get all the opportunities there will be nothing left for you. You find yourself then comparing yourself to others and wondering why not me God?

Is this where you are right now?

Now the thing is we don’t know where people are in their journey, we don’t know how long they have been waiting for things to happen or what they have given up to go after what God has put on their heart or the sacrifices they have made for the breakthrough we are jealous of. We can’t judge other people and we certainly can’t look at where they are on their journey and compare it with our own because ours is going to be completely made to measure for us not off the peg! God has got a race marked out for you and you only, so it isn’t healthy for us to compare ours with any other. You are the only person who can run the race God has marked out for you and that to me is exciting.

I am looking at the wait now in a different way because actually I don’t want the journey someone else is on I want my own. I choose to trust in God that He has the best plans for ME. I want to encourage you today that it is worth the wait and I can testify that I am now beginning to see amazing things happening in my life and opportunities I never would have dreamed possible. I am beginning to see that the waiting has been a fruitful time and that if you ‘force’ God’s hand it is such a waste of time and effort.

Heb 12:1-3 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³ Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

I have been listening to this song called by Kristene Dimarco called Take Courage and it beautifully sums up that God is in the waiting and that we can trust Him because His thoughts are higher than ours and His plans are better than ours.

So, if you are in a season of waiting, please let the words of the song sink deep into you.

“Take Courage”