WAITING PATIENTLY ON THE LORD

“Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, ‘See now, the LORD has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.’ And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai.”

-Genesis 16:1-2

God had given Sarai and Abram the promise of a son. However, when Sarai was unable to bear a child for Abram, she became impatient, she grew tired of waiting for the Lord and decided to “help things along” by giving her maidservant Hagar to her husband. But the son that Hagar conceived with Abram, Ishmael, was not the son God had promised. Sarai had taken matters into her own hands and decided to create her own destiny, her own picture from the single puzzle piece God had revealed to her and Abram. The problem was God’s picture, God’s plan looked much different than Sarai’s when all the pieces had been revealed and put into their proper place. Sarai had allowed her flesh, her impatience to take priority over God’s plan, His perfect will and Abram had heeded the voice of his wife over the voice of the Lord.

Do you ever become impatient waiting for God? I know I do. God often gives me a vision of what He has in store for me, but the vision is incomplete, it is just a single puzzle piece in a 1000 piece puzzle. Yet, when I receive this solitary piece of the puzzle, I find it difficult to sit back and wait…I want to “help things along,” I want to finish the puzzle. So, without knowing what the ultimate picture looks like, I blindly start creating my own picture around that single puzzle piece. The only problem is, no matter how much I convince myself that I am “helping things along,” I find I am only making a mess of things in the end. You see, as God reveals more of His plan for me, one puzzle piece at a time, I find the picture I had created from that single puzzle piece has no place for the new one the Lord has revealed. So I am faced with the decision to scrap the picture I created and wait for what the Lord will reveal or stick to what I have created and be certain to fail as the Lord is not in it. I have wasted so much time, effort, and money creating my own picture only to discover what the Lord has in mind is very different than my interpretation. While God works it all out in the end, how much better would it have been if I had waited patiently on God’s perfect will in His perfect timing from the start?

While waiting patiently on the Lord is never easy, we can rest assured that we will be blessed when every piece of the puzzle is revealed and put into its proper place. God’s plan for our lives is much bigger and more beautiful than anything we could ever imagine on our own and His timing is perfect.

COACH'S CALL TO ACTION

• What are the puzzle pieces the Lord has revealed to you?


• Where in your life have you created your own picture rather than waiting on the Lord?


• What would it look like to scrap that picture and wait on the Lord and His plan for you?

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