Waiting for God's promise

Are you waiting for God to do something?

I loved my new garden, an unexpected blessing after a flood of muddy water washed through my home, but after the flowers faded I waited, I continued to water but no more blooms appeared. Some plants even looked like they were dying.

Then, knowing little about gardening, I got my clippers and removed all the unsightly dead flowers and magically new ones began to appear, my garden was in bloom again.

As I continued to water, some plants that appeared totally dead began to sprout new life but there was one area that a plant was gone. My husband confessed to pulling it out and discarding it because it looked dead.

There’s always something to learn from nature gazing and as I admired my fresh new pink kangaroo paw flowers I was reminded that nothing happened until I removed the dead wood. Once I gave these treasures some attention, beautiful new flowers sprouted, making my heart glad. So what does that teach me?

I know from experience what its like to wait years for fulfilment of a promise from God, some promised years ago I still wait to see fulfilled. Once we see what our future will be, we want it now but often there’s ‘dead wood’ that needs to be discarded from us before we can see God’s plans for us take shape.

The dead plant represents promises we get from God but because we don’t fully believe them or we don’t see instant gratification we can be tempted to dismiss them as inaccurate and they never become reality for us.

Why do we need this long wait?

I don’t know why God would choose us to help Him draw those who are hurting into a personal relationship with Him but He does and He patiently and lovingly waits however long it takes until we’re willing to take that first step.

We don’t have to know where these steps will take us, we just have to trust him.
How can we understand the road we travel? It is the LORD who directs our steps. Proverbs 20:24

To let go of our own agendas and trust God to take us into the unknown can be daunting, especially when we’re comfortable with the place we’re at. But God won’t ask us to do something unless we’ve already indicated to Him that we’re willing to serve Him.

He doesn’t get annoyed if we hold back, He doesn’t make us cower in the corner if He has to wait for us, but when we take that forward step, He lovingly refreshes and renews us with His Word. Then we see our destiny beginning to take shape and belief and passion for the vision starts to build in us, even though we’re not convinced we’re capable of the task ahead. God’s plans always seem impossible for us until we trust Him and step out.

We’re never ready for what God needs us to do, but the promises He gives is His way of saying, ‘Look, this is what I know you can do if you put your trust in Me!’

To gain wisdom from God we need to be willing. Then God can mould us into the kind of person He needs us to be before we can handle the fulfilment of those promises and the world waits eagerly for us to get it right.

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. James 1:5

Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him. Psalm 25:12

We can often be waiting for God to move when He’s patiently waiting for us, but persevering brings success and a life filled with purpose is sweet.

Please share this message and do your part to help advance the Kingdom of Heaven!

© Copyright 2014 Elaine Costin All Rights Reserved
While everything The Holy Spirit inspires me to write is under full copyright protection, the only purpose is to make sure people copy it right. As long as you always clearly reference it as my work including my copyright statement at the bottom, keep it in its entirety without editing of any kind and link it to https://www.capturingsunrise.com/blog as the source, you have my permission to copy, print, and distribute my writings freely, as long as it is not for profit. If you wish to use my writings in a profit making capacity then permission must be granted by the author.