I can recall my first day of skiing. My youth pastor had taken me down various intermediate slopes all day long, teaching me how to turn and stop. At the end of the day, he promised to take me down a black diamond. I carefully weaved my way back and forth across the slope at a slow speed. About halfway down, I was bored, so I started asking if I could just go for it? After my fourth or so plea for adventure, he finally acquiesced. I bolted straight down the hill and much to my own chagrin soon realized that this was not going to end well. I decided to use my recently learned stop tactic and made a hard right, back up the hill, hoping that my momentum would be slowed. As a large tree appeared directly in front of me, I thought to myself, “Perfect, I’ll just reach out and grab it!” That, too, didn’t end the way I had anticipated – but I certainly did come to a screeching stop!
Oftentimes I think about how God is teaching me patience; a lesson of which I’m not very fond! Lesson after lesson of learning to wait on Him and trust His perfect timing. I feel like I am constantly being taught patience, but what about God being patient with us? We focus on verses like James 1:17 which says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” Indeed! God longs to pour blessings upon his children; but have you ever stopped to think that maybe those blessings could be even more beautiful and powerful if they were received by children fully and completely relinquished to their Lord?
The first three verses of Psalm 130 talks about a people crying out to God from the depths of their souls, asking for forgiveness and deliverance. Verse 4 affirms the fact that God does forgive! But then in verses 5 and 6, we return to waiting. God has already declared his forgiveness so why must those who desire to follow him wait? Or are we the ones who are really doing the waiting? Could it be that God knows our souls better than we know ourselves? Like a new skier who thinks she is ready to fly, could it be that God is patiently waiting and saying, “Trust me, you’re just not ready”?
I’ve often found that after confessing sin, God doesn’t respond as quickly as I would hope. It’s not a matter of him not instantly forgiving, in fact, he forgave long before I even asked. As we read in James, God longs to bless his children. So could it be that the waiting that we experience is a demonstration of God’s own patience? It is a picture of a loving Father, longing to pour out his blessings, yet knowing that in order for us to receive what we can’t even fathom, we must be fully relinquished to the will and way of our loving and patient God.
Lynette Fuson
Director of Care & Counseling