wednesday words: waiting

one word's been sticking out at me lately:

WAITING

everyone goes through seasons of waiting.
here are some of ours:

i waited for ben to come into my life :)

we waited for him to get his orders

we waited (although not very long) to get married and move :)

we waited to move back to the states after our 3 yrs in japan

we waited for ben's college to be done and for the next chapter

we've waited to buy a house...settle down... start a family...

we've waited for many things.


each season of waiting and each thing we wait for has different challenges.
but the Lord teaches us patience, faith and trust during each of the seasons.
and more importantly, He teaches us that His plans are not our plans, and His ways are not our ways, and how we think things should go, or how we try to plan things for our life may not be what He wants for us.

sometimes it's hard to let go of those things we want and the timeframe we want them to happen, and to trust that the Lord's ways are the best.

a few lessons that have come through seasons of waiting for me:

DON'T COMPARE!

we need to remember not to compare ourselves to others and what they have. sometimes our life has seemed so very different from those of our friends who got married right out of college, bought a house, had a baby, settled down and stayed in one job. our life is NOTHING like that. sometimes we wonder why things have been different for us, but it does nobody any good to compare. the Lord has a plan for each of us, and every plan is different! and just because some people may have what you want, it doesn't mean that you don't have things they want also. the grass is always greener on the other side, right? just food for thought. let us be thankful for what we do have and strive to be content with where the Lord has us, even if it's in the waiting game.

DON'T GET STUCK in the WAITING

don't let your mind and heart be so focused on what you're waiting for that you aren't in the present and living the life the Lord has for you RIGHT NOW. (i'm reminding myself of this as much as anything, because i know from experience this is so much easier to say than it is to put into practice!) it is great to dream and to hope and to want things, but it's not good to be so focused on what we want to happen next that we forget to be present in the here-and-now, focused on what He's teaching us and doing in us, and the things He wants us to do while we are waiting!

i just want to encourage you today if you're waiting for something - the Lord knows our hearts. He knows what we want, and this verse is always so encouraging to me in seasons of waiting:

"for i know the plans i have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper and not harm you, to give you a future and a hope". jer 29:11

may we cling to this promise, and remember that the Lord has a plan for us, and it's better than what we could ever imagine for ourselves :)