Patiently Waiting for God

Since I got married to Rical, I realised how impatient I am as a person. I mean I knew that I am not a very patient person, but after living with him I realised how very much impatient I am. For the things I cannot bear to wait, Rical seems able to wait effortlessly. Many things I realised I am like a little child when I have to wait, for example, if I have to wait for a long queue, I would be very restless and if it has reached my limit, I would feel suffocated and hard to breathe because I couldn’t stand anymore. I am not sure if any of you have experienced what I am talking about.

Hanniel, my son is very similar to me. If he has to wait for a bit longer than usual for something, his endurance is very low and he could be so restless that he couldn’t bear anymore sitting or standing waiting for his time to come. And sadly I am no different from him who is much older than him. Patience is not something that is already built-in inside me. It requires a lot of training and endurance to make a better me even up to this age. 

As we know being patient is one of the fruits of the holy spirit. God sees the importance of us to bear fruit of patience after we become the children of God.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness – Galatians 5:22

Throughout my life, God has been diligently training me to be more patient in many areas. There are things I learned from my experience of waiting for God’s timing that I would like to share with all of you:

1. Just because we cannot wait doesn’t mean God will discount the waiting period.

Rical and I have different levels of patience. Just because I cannot bear to wait longer than his capacity to wait, doesn’t mean that God will allow me to wait for less than him. The waiting period can be the same with other people. Therefore when I know God has put me in a ‘waiting corner’ I must find a way to at least ‘enjoy’ the waiting period.

2. When we are put in the waiting corner, God somehow will purposely let us see and witness other people having breakthroughs for things that we are currently waiting for.

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Psalm 137:7

This is the part that I feel most annoyed with. I remembered whenever I want a financial breakthrough, or wanted to buy another house, or wanted to get a new job with better pay, I then started to hear other people receive the blessing from God for the very thing that I am longing for! Why does He do this? Not only does He ask me to wait, but He wants to make me jealous of other people’s success?

At first, I was so upset with the way God works and bring this matter to Him. But as I walked with him longer and experienced a lot of breakthroughs with Him, I know He is a good Father. He wants me to wait for His perfect time. And based on my experience, when I started to see a lot of people receive the breakthrough, many times my blessing is just around the corner. We just need to endure a little bit more with joy. Now I am smarter, when I start to see people getting blessed, I am talking to myself, yes my time is coming soon.

3. It is His time, not our time.

Many times when we ask for something from God, we give Him the timeframe when we want to receive it without we realised it. I give you an example:

Lord, please I need to have my house to be sold now because our finance is very tight and I don’t have any money left in my bank account. You need to help me now.

Or Lord, I need to have a baby this year because I am already 35 years old. It will be too dangerous for me to be pregnant above 35 years old.

Or Lord, please I need to be healed now from all my sicknesses because I have to help my family financially, and so on.

Whatever reason we give to God, He is not obliged to fulfill our request in our requested time. Many times I want something really badly, I don’t necessarily get it in my time frame.

We know it is not about our time, it is about God’s time. This is also a bit hard for me to endure. For people like me who do not like to wait, it is very painful. Though I have given Him my best reason why I should have it now, He used these reasons for me to learn to be patient and to learn to trust in His perfect time.

4. When the waiting time has ended a huge reward is waiting for us.

After I completed my waiting period, many times He will shower me with lots of blessings at the same time. His reward is huge and beyond what we could think of to the extent I feel that I am not worthy to receive those blessings from Him.

I remember when we had to wait for rical to get a job. He has to wait for 5-6 months to get a job. But when he finally got one, he got the government job, then right after that God blessed us with a new house, then I got pregnant with Hanniel, and lastly one month after we settled our house, Rical got 30% increase in his salary. It was way beyond our imagination. We were so grateful for His love for us.

So what I can say is that God is faithful, when He asked us to wait, He will not leave us alone but He is always there for us until we are done with the waiting time.

As a closing I would like to share this verse:

Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. Romans 12:12