in the wait

**I first wrote this earlier this Summer...before Haiti became a reality. Even now that I've moved out of a season of "waiting" I know there will be more waiting seasons throughout my life and I will need this reminder just as much.**

I recently finished up a Lysa Terkeurst Bible Study: Becoming More than a Good Bible Study Girl.

Kind of a ridiculous name, but if you can get past the cheesy title, it really was a good study.

One chapter especially resonated with me, probably because it dealt with the subject of waiting.

I don't like to wait. I don't know anyone who likes waiting. Anyone. Do you?

Yet, we all have periods of waiting in our lives. And I'm not talking about the waiting for our food at a restaurant or a prescription at the pharmacy...but the God ordained periods of waiting...

For a move, or a job, or for a husband to come to know the Lord. Waiting for a door to open. Or a door to close. Waiting for a child or sibling to come back to God. Waiting to get pregnant, or for a referral for an adoption. Or for that phone call or email with the news.

It can be excruciating.

I think a lot of it (for me) is that waiting reveals my lack of control and my not-being-okay with my lack of control. I am a planner, a woman of action. Give me a check-list and I am in my happy place. Give me a blank sheet of paper with one word on it...wait...and I am likely to throw a very mature and classy hissy fit.

Anyways, in the study we were looking through the life of David, specifically when David was called in off the fields where he was tending sheep and anointed as the king by Samuel. Immediately after his anointing I was struck by the next order of events:

1 Samuel 17:34a But David said, "Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep..."

After his anointing as king he went back to tending sheep. Waiting. He had been called to something from God...and yet he had to wait before he fulfilled that calling.

But his waiting time wasn't a waste, his waiting period was necessary to prepare him:

1 Samuel 17:34b - 37 When a lion or bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on my, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear.

David's preparation was perfected in the fields of his everyday life.

He didn't complain, he embraced it.
He learned in his season of waiting.
He allowed God to prepare him.
He didn't rush it.

And when the time came to act...he was prepared.

Are you in a season of waiting? Allow God to grow you and teach you and prepare you. Embrace it, don't complain about it. And then, when the time comes to act on that calling...you will be perfectly prepared.

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