It Is Good to Wait on the Lord

Every day is different. However, the desires of my heart remain the same, and the struggle remains. I Face these desires, which I know are good, but struggle to surrender to the Lord and trust in His plan and His timing. I wonder. I wait. I wish.

I keep finding myself saying I wish I could have a big girl job. I wish I could have an apartment of my own. I wish I could own a car. I wish I could have fancy clothes. I wish I was done with nursing school. I wish I was closer to marriage. I wish.... fill in the blank. I struggle with restlessness with where I'm at in my life. I struggle with loneliness. I desire to love and be loved.

This week was good - I knew the Lord was with me. I was centered, I was focused, I was good - I started off the week strong, refreshed, renewed, rejuvenated. And then yesterday hit. I was tired. I knew there were things I needed to do, but I didn't want to do them, so I didn't. I watched way more tv in one day than any normal person should. I then lead myself into a downward spiral of beating myself up, which continued into the majority of today, and rather than facing the feelings, I numbed them and continued to turn to media and wish for an unrealistic love. I questioned and wondered what it might be like if I were to take a break from being Christian, even if just for a day. Finally, this afternoon I turned to the Lord. I read His word. I was vulnerable with Him. He already knew what was going on, but He rewards us for coming to Him for consolation (even if it did take me longer than I would've liked). In my time spent with our Lord today I read a homily on waiting.

I wanted to share with you some of the parts that really stood out to me.

"Waiting is open-ended. Open-ended waiting is hard for us because we tend to wait for something

very concrete, for something we wish to have. Much of our waiting is with wishes: "I wish that I could have a job. I wish that the weather would be better. I wish that the pain would go." We are full of wishes, and our waiting easily gets entangled in those wishes. For this reason, a lot of our waiting is not open-ended. Instead, our waiting is a way of controlling the future. We want the future to go in a very specific direction, and if this does not happen we are disappointed and can even slip into despair. That is why we have such a hard time waiting: we want to do the things that will make the desired events takes pace.

...Mary, Elizabeth and Zechariah were filled with hope. Hope is trusting that something will be fulfilled, but fulfilled according to the promises and not just according to our wishes. Hope is open-ended.

I have found is very important in my own life to let go of my wishes and start hoping. It was only when I was willing to let go of wishes that something really new, something beyond my own expectations could happen to me.

To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life. So is to trust that something will happen to us that is far beyond our own imaginings. So, too, is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life, trusting that God molds us according to God's love and not according to our fear." -Henri J. M. Nouwen

We must wait on the Lord. We must surrender the desires of our hearts to Him. We must wait open-endedly, trusting that His plan, His will are far greater than anything our minds can create. It is good to wait on the Lord, for when we wait with hope in His plan for our life we are most able to follow the narrow path, and to most fully have the desires of our hearts satisfied.