Waiting on the Lord

“You can never learn that Christ is all you need, until Christ is all you have.” ― Corrie Ten Boom

If you’re opening this article or stumbling across it, in a desperate time in your life, I want to encourage you that you are in a very special season. If you’re not there, I want to inspire you to welcome God to lead you to a place where he can draw you to himself. 

Being in a situation where you’re waiting on the Lord is an incredibly special time in life. It is likely one of the most painful times of your life, and may not fit into the storybook of your most cherished memories. In fact, no matter how many heart-wrenching experiences we have in our lives, it seems unnatural to embrace them. Rather, every fiber of our beings wants out. Yes, our temptation is to run away from this discomfort, to do anything we can to feel better. But something very different happens, though, when we choose to lean in. This is what I want to talk about today.

Waiting on God can look like:
Having a deep desire for something yet no power to obtain it.
Being in a dark or difficult situation and wanting rescued.
Simply having a need or desire of any kind where you lack power.

Perhaps you are waiting on the Lord for a spouse like I did for most of my twenties, or for a child, or delivery from depression or illness; perhaps you are waiting for restoration in a relationship, a dream job or relief from a difficult work situation, for financial provision, a home, a resolution; rescue from abuse, meaning, understanding, love, a sense of your value or worth.

Whatever it is, all of us have very likely had the opportunity to wait on the Lord. 

There was a moment in my journey of faith, in my early twenties while I was in ministry, living halfway across the country and far from home, that I felt alone. One of my dearest relationships had just been taken from me -- and it was there that I realized I could embrace hardship or refuse it. I chose in that moment, only by the power of the Holy Spirit working in me, to “Never Say No to the Lord.” When I felt him inviting me to trust him in a desperate time, I would say yes. I would lean in, rather than claw out. And in my life, this decision has changed everything.

We all have life stories. At the end of my life, I want to be able to say:
I was hurt deeply -- and I found the courage to forgive.
I was dealt a difficult hand -- but I did not fold the cards, I fought to make a better way for my children.
I waited on the Lord -- and was given over and abundantly more than I could have ever asked or imagined. (Ephesians 3:20).

Waiting on the Lord creates room in our hearts and shapes our character to experience the most exhilarating moments in our lives, if we lean into them. Waiting on the Lord is almost never in the vision we have for our lives, but it is the reason we have stories worth telling. This is where legacy is formed.

Yes, the greatest victories in life often come from the darkest times, and I want to encourage you to embrace them. I pray that we can even get to the place that Larry Crabb describes in his book, Shattered Dreams, where we pray for our children, not that they would be protected from all harm, but that their earthly dreams would be shattered so that they might know Jesus deeply. This is hard for us to digest. Yes, it goes against every fiber of our very earthly beings, which are geared to protect these temporary bodies from harm and to find success and happiness within this world in which we live. Seeing beyond to another world, the one in which we are intended to live, takes continual, conscious effort. This, I believe, is the primary goal for us here on earth though -- to know the Lord. In order for us to endure the pains of this world we must set this as our goal. “So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; And He will come to us like the rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth" (Hosea 6:3, NASB).

The beautiful thing is, as we give up what seems to be every tangible happiness, that we receive a much deeper satisfaction, which only our Father knows we need. This quote from C.S. Lewis (that Pastor Josiah shared in a recent sermon) describes it well. 

“Our desires are not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Examples of Bravery in Desperate Times

I recently finished reading “The Hiding Place,” a classic retelling of Corrie ten Boom’s families’ role in hiding Jews during the Holocaust of World World II. Corrie and her family suffered imprisonment and torture in concentration camps as the cost of this underground operation. I was so deeply moved by their responses as they were persecuted. Facing humiliation, starvation, and a true lack of hopeful circumstances, Corrie and her sister Betsie made the choice in their hearts to lean into the Lord. As their situation grew worse and worse and they had little to be thankful for, they still gave thanks to the Lord (even for the fleas that infested their beds). They chose to find hope that, “Jesus would be Victor.” They chose to find love in their heart for their persecutors, “If only they knew the love of Jesus.” They chose to lead their fellow prisoners into worship and reading of the word as a ministry when they could have thought of only their own survival. Their smuggled Bible was their lifeline.

Corrie and Betsie questioned how much more they could take at every step of the way, each one seeming beyond their ability to bear, but it was here they discovered that there really was no limit to the capacity of the human soul surrendered to God. As Corrie herself said, “Some knowledge is too heavy...you cannot bear it...your Father will carry it until you are able.” It was here in the darkest of places, that Corrie and her sister Betsie decided that they must live to tell the world that, “There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still.” They knew that if they could survive this torture, during one of the world’s gravest travesties, that others could also survive their circumstances.   

Through their lives, we see that it is here in these places of waiting on the Lord in desperate times, that the Gospel is told in some of its most powerful ways. When things are clearly out of our earthly hands, God gets the victory. “In darkness, God's truth shines most clear.”

It is here that trust is built. I believe that Jesus knows that this, trust, is an absolute necessity for us to have in life. It is the gateway by which we receive his love -- so he gives us endless opportunities to develop it. “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God,” as Corrie would say. 

So yes, I pray that each of us can take this courageous leap to lean into our pain, and discover the greater things God has in store for us. If you are here, you have given God permission to be the leader in your life, and that is incredibly special. You are deeply loved and abundantly provided for. Amazing things are in store for you. May we press on to know the Lord.

“No pit is so deep that He is not deeper still; with Jesus even in our darkest moments, the best remains and the very best is yet to be.” 

― Corrie Ten Boom

For Further Encouragement:
The Word of the Lord
The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom
Shattered Dreams, Larry Crabb
Beautiful Mercy