The Spiritual Battle Part IV—Waiting

In this picture, Caiden’s seizures had not started yet. He was making progress toward forming words. We have waited for his miraculous healing and continue to wait for results that may never come. Where is God in the waiting? Learn how to stop Satan from stealing your joy while you’re in the meantime.

Before concluding the spiritual battle and moving forward to the physical front, I thought it necessary to reflect a bit on waiting.  Whether you are waiting for healing, success, graduation, your spouse or your next big break, there is no other time in our lives when we are more open to attack than when we are in the meantime. For the season of advent, a time of waiting, let’s learn to wait the right way. 

What about waiting makes us vulnerable to attack? Usually, when we wait for something better to come, the next best thing, means we are in a disposition of dissatisfaction. I spoke at length last time about the dangers of dissatisfaction. When we are ungrateful for the gifts given to us by God, our dissatisfaction can lead us to strive for what is not ours and was never meant to be ours. We can look for satisfaction in things that bring us and the kingdom no glory.  But not all dissatisfaction is wrong. It is right to want to change our unsatisfactory circumstances. It’s absolutely imperative to desire transformation and to seek the highest good in our lives.   Basically, it’s good to want more of what is good. The problem sneaks in when there is delay. 

Delay is inevitable. In the meantime, while you are waiting, anything can happen—an economic downturn, an election, a pandemic, etc. Stuff, out of our control, happens, which keeps us in the meantime and prolongs the wait. And though we intellectually know these probabilities, when delay comes, we are almost always annoyed, dismayed, or outright pissed off.  There is a tiny part of us that feels entitled to have change now—no waiting allowed. This is where our enemy, Satan, takes full advantage of our impatience.  He does what he does best, lies. He lies to you using the “nevers” and the “always” words—you will never get what you want or you will always be stuck in this. Or worse God could care less about what you want.  With these lies unchallenged, running our thoughts and emotions, we act hastily and take matters into our own hands. We decide to quit waiting and begin striving for what we believe is ours to take.

The problem is we may not be ready to get what we want.  As ready as we may feel, may not be as ready as we actually are. But don’t despair. In the meantime l, while you wait, is where God does His finest work. This is when He stretches our hearts to larger capacities to love and be loved, IF we let Him. God in His great goodness allows us to wait and wait some more, until we are fully ready to receive His gift and bear much fruit with it.  

I have had much experience with waiting. I waited for a big break in my career that never came. I waited for a husband—in my impatience, I almost ended up unhappily ever after with a few frogs, a few too many time—thank God he sent Nathan before I made some gigantic irrevocable hasty decision. And most recently, I waited seven years for a child. This was a tough one! Although, I never got pregnant, in the painful struggle to conceive, God stretched my heart to the limits. I may not have stretchmarks to prove it, but I know I’ve got them mystically on my heart. 

The point is, I have certainly waited a lot in my life and, I can now say, I am better for it.  How? Well, for one thing, I have learned more on how to wait properly. What is the proper way to wait? With expectancy, hope and trust in God.  Well, what the hell does that look like?

Think of the deepest unfulfilled desire of your heart. Really picture what the details of your life would look like, if the wait was over, and that desire and prayer were granted.  How does it feel? What is different in your life? What can you do now that you couldn’t do before receiving your heart’s desire? Ok, now hold that thought while I share. 

I have prayed for Caiden’s miraculous healing from the time before we brought him home and have not stopped praying. My prayer has been answered, just not in the way I had hoped.  Caiden is indeed, still disabled.  Is God lying when He promises His children if they pray for food, he will not give them rocks to eat (Matthew 7:11). It's easy to lose your patience with God if you take this scripture and others like it out of context.  Maybe first consider the totality of scripture, tradition and how He has worked in the lives of His saints before deciding God is a liar. Most of the saints had challenging lives filled with suffering. And we are all called to be saints! Scripture is clear; the Christian life is not meant to be easy. Pick up your heavy cross, carry it, and squeeze it through the narrow gate—oh and don’t forget to love selflessly amidst all the trouble along the way! (See Matt 16, Matt 7:13, Matt 22:39, & John 16:33). So, If God is saying no to your perfectly good desire, then there is a way better reason to keep you waiting and unsatisfied.  What God desires most is to fulfill the deepest desire of your heart—it’s so deep you may not even be conscious of it.  The saints knew what they wanted most was to be in perfect union with God. Being in sync with God is powerful and awesome, but even that won’t keep you free from suffering. Yet, I firmly believe it’s what we all want most, even the worst of sinners, because it is imprinted in the DNA of our hearts. We were created to love and be loved perfectly by God. We were made for Heaven! (Isa 45: 18, Rom 11: 36, and 1 Tim 2: 4). The saints understood this deeply and regarded their sacrifices and sufferings worthy, when it meant gaining the larger overarching desire—to be with God for all eternity.

So, here I am and there you are with your good desire unfulfilled and waiting.  What do we do with this longing? Remember now the answers to the questions I asked you earlier. Consider this: What if you could have all those things you attached to your desire without having this desire granted? I believe you can have this now. I am certain, if God is saying “No” or “not yet” to your prayer, He is inviting you to live out the fruits of what desire right now without having the object of your desire. In other words, he wants you to have these fruits of your desire through deeper commitment and relationship with Him.  Which means, you can start right now having more love, joy, peace, goodness . . . you see where this is going? You don’t have to have your dream come true to have these fruits of the Holy Spirit! The wait is over. It’s yours right now! And if you don’t “feel” these fruits, I promise you, it’s not because you don’t have what you want. God knows you are better off, for now or perhaps forever, having this particular desire unfulfilled.  Because He knows without it, you can most certainly become your best self—a saint. The wait brings faith, healing and holiness. Stop fighting the wait and enter into the meantime, living your life purposefully enjoying the gifts of the Holy Spirit NOW. Your mission has already begun, don’t waste any more time waiting for it to begin. 

So, here I am, still longing for Caiden’s miraculous healing, and here Caiden is alive yet unchanged. BUT, right now, as he is, Caiden is blessing us with his joyful innocence and inspiring us to be better because he needs us to be. Instead, I am the one who has been deeply changed, I know for the better. How do I know? Because I have the fruits of all I have ever wanted—love, peace and so much joy. My life is not easy and there is deep suffering, but I am truly content walking in my purpose. Not having what I want continues to be a huge gift and has opened up a new realm of possibility. Plus, if I had gotten everything I ever wanted without the wait, well, my life would be so different and that is too horrible to imagine!

In this season of waiting, I think God may have shared with me a glimpse of His deepest longing—He waits for you and me and all the world to be and stay with Him forever. God too may never get what He deeply wants, yet He waits, deeply satisfied with those who are truly with Him.  Friends, we have the opportunity to choose: Wait with anger and impatience, dissatisfied with what we have already been given, proclaiming life is not good enough unless we get what we want, when we want it. Or we can wait, like Our Mother Mary, full of hope, joy and expectancy that God will make our waiting worth it and will always give you exactly what you need and what you truly want. Until next time, choose trust and wait in Joy! God bless!