Anystazya (post: 1324514) wrote:I wouldn't mind reading the waiting passage
[SIZE="5"][font="Franklin Gothic Medium"]After Words[/SIZE]
Ron Mehl[/font]
God's Waiting Room
Wait on the Lord][SIZE="2"]Psalm 27:14[/SIZE][/font]
Waiting isn't likely to make anyone's list of favorite things. Yet the further you venture into adulthood, the more you'll realize that waiting is a rather large and mostly unavoidable chunk of life.
We wait for service in restaurants, counting the holes in the top of the salt shaker. We wait for the traffic to edge forward an inch or two on the way home. We show up fifteen minutes early for our doctor's appointment and end up waiting forty-five minutes - just to get into one of those chilly little examining rooms where we wait for another half hour in our underwear.
God has a waiting room, too, you know.
You might not find those exact words in Scripture, but it's there all right. From one end of the Book to the other, God has brought people into the waiting room of delayed dreams.
Can you picture it...that great, celestial waiting room? Can you see it in your mind's eye? One very large room stretching out both ways farther than you can see. Shining floors, marble walls, white-shaded lamps...and countless people sitting in chairs, glancing now and again at the clock on the wall, clearing their throats, drumming their fingers, chewing their lips...and waiting.
Waiting for God to respond.
Waiting for God to keep His promise.
Waiting for God to speak.
Waiting for God to answer.
Waiting for God to heal.
Waiting for God to act.
Can you imagine yourself sitting there...in God's waiting room? You look over to your left and there's Noah, calmly thumbing through a boating magazine. He's waiting for something called "rain". He's never seen it before, but God had said it would come - a lot of it.
Over on your right is Abraham. He's been there a very long time, waiting for a little son whose name would be "Laughter." He's become an old man in that waiting room, but he'll stick it out. He has a promise in his pocket with God's signature on it.
Job is there, too, so weak and doubled over with pain and sorrow he can barely stay in his chair. He's waiting for healing, waiting for a few encouraging words, waiting for someone to help him make sense of a life shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.
Ruth's there, too, waiting for a husband - and a redeemer.
David is there, of course, waiting for a promised kingdom. If you listen carefully you can hear him pray...
In the morning, O LORD,
you hear my voice;
in the morning I lay my requests before you
and wait in expectation.
(Psalm 5:3, NIV)
One striking young man sits with his hands folded in his lap, his expression alternating between intense longing and sturdy, determined patience. His name is Joseph, and he has spent some of the prime years of his life in God's waiting room.
You probably remember Joseph's story from the book of Genesis. He was sold by jealous brothers into Egyptian slavery, falsely accused by his master's wife, and thrown into the subbasement of an Egyptian prison. He was probably sixteen or seventeen when he was captured, and possibly thirty before he was released.
That's a long time to spend in a waiting room.
That's a lot of dreams put on hold.
But while Joseph's dreams were on hold, God was working.
He was working in Israel. He was working in the courts of Egypt. He was working with the weather patterns encircling the globe. He was working in the hearts of Joseph's brothers. And He was working in Joseph's heart, too, refining the young man's faith, drawing him ever closer to the heart of God.
Ever though Joseph's plans, hopes, and dreams were waiting, God was not waiting. He was working ceaselessly on His servant's behalf.
At the end of many years, after he had become ruler of Egypt, Joseph could reflect on those long days and years of waiting and hardship his brothers had put him through, look into their eyes, and say from the heart, "You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good...to save many people alive" (Genesis 50:20). Joseph had held on tight to the promises of God and emerged victorious.
Sometimes I have become so tired of waiting I have wanted to throw in the towel. I suspect you get to that point too. You may come to the point where you find yourself saying, "I can't carry on anymore. I can't believe on trust anymore. In my own strength and in my own wisdom I have nothing left to hope."
But listen: It's at that point, Son - while clinging with all your strength to God - that you are ready to move to another dimension of faith, beyond what seems logical, beyond what makes sense. You are being invited to trust God at a new level. More than ever, He can
become your hope.
When you're sitting in God's waiting room, remember that you can rely on His love and His promises. Noah did. Abraham did. So did Job, Ruth, David, and Joseph. When He saw that the time was right, God came through for each of them.
You can be sure He'll also come through for you.
you can pronounce it like 'Anastasia' You know, like that princess chick in the movie? (That's not where I got the inspiration for the name from, but still, it works enough) ^^
Looking for a 
