Laced With Grace

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion.  For the LORD is a God of justice.  Blessed are all who wait for him! (Isaiah 30:18 NIV)

I wonder if there is a support group somewhere for well-intentioned, God-seeking impatient people.  I’m sure you know the type.  Maybe you are one of them, sincerely wanting to do God’s work, but sometimes jumping in with your own plans and getting ahead of God’s timing, accomplishing a lot of good things, but missing out on the best God has to offer.  I know a few of those people, and admittedly I’m one of them at times. 

God says repeatedly that we should wait on and trust in him.  Through the prophet Isaiah, God chastises the people of Israel for carrying out plans that weren’t of Him.  They were forging ahead, trusting in man-made provisions for their security and God reminded them of the futility of their ways.  He then offered a standing invitation to return to Him for their needs and for future blessing as he stated in Isaiah 30:18, “Blessed are all who wait for him!”

We will be blessed by waiting on God.  While we view our world from ground level, He looks at the world from a “helicopter” view.  Not only does He see how all things are working together, but He also knows what skills and character qualities we need to be able to carry out His plans.  He knows when we will be able to most effectively carry out His will.  We don’t.

When we jump ahead we miss the best for our lives and create more struggles.  Because we jump ahead, thinking we are ready but really aren’t, we struggle with both the inefficiencies of our underdeveloped character as well as the inefficiencies caused by all of the external “pieces” of the plan not being available yet.  However when we wait on God’s timing, He will take care of those kinds of details for us.   We may still face opposition in executing the plan, but it will definitely be easier His way.  That’s why we will be blessed by waiting.  Perhaps by waiting we will even “get there” quicker.

To Ponder:

1) In what area of your life are you getting impatient with God?

2) In this area, how will you benefit from waiting on God?  What work does He have yet to do in you or in the situation?

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you, (1 Peter 1:3-4 NIV)

How are you feeling today?  Hopeless and helpless?  Joyless & jilted?  No matter what the trial is in our lives, we don’t have to feel that way.  If you’ve accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can be hopeful and joyful through it all.  The key is all in where we choose to focus our attention. 

If we keep an attitude of gratitude, remembering the good things we have rather than the seemingly “better” things we don’t have, we can have an inner sense of peace and joy no matter what the situation.  We can choose to be thankful for God’s great act of mercy in allowing his only son Jesus to pay for our sins by his death of the cross.  We can choose to be thankful that God also raised Jesus from the dead, allowing us to relish in the certain hope of a glorious eternal life with God and an inheritance in heaven.  Think about how great that life is going to be!  As Christians, we have that to be thankful for. 

Let’s choose to put on an attitude of gratitude rather than one of grumbling over the way our lives have not turned out like we’ve planned.  After all, how do we know that our lives aren’t turning out exactly as God has planned?  If He’s in charge, things have got to end up well!

For further thought:

1) Have you personally accepted Jesus into your life?  Do you remember a specific time and place where this occurred?  If not, you may not yet be a Christian.  Check out this link to know more about becoming a Christian.  If you do accept Christ today, would you email our team to let us know that you did?

2) What area of your life do you need to give total control of to God?  Give it to Him today and be thankful that He is in control of all.

3) How can you thank God for His mercy on you today?

But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, so that I also may be encouraged when I learn of your condition.  For I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare.  For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus.  (Philippians 2:19-21 NASB)

A friend with a kindred spirit is a priceless gift from God.  He or she can only come from God.  God definitely has a unique way of bringing people together.  I’ve been blessed to have a number of close friends over the course of my lifetime.  As I’ve matured over the years, my friendships have also changed.  Some have endured, some have faded away and new friends have also entered into my life … all in God’s perfect timing.

Recently, I happened to stop by a blog I hadn’t read in a long time and found a post regarding the kindred spirit friendship of Paul & Timothy as well as that of David and Jonathon.  When I read one commenter lamenting that she doesn’t think these types of friendships exist any more, I wondered why this is so.  While I don’t believe they are “extinct”, because I am fortunate to be a part of one, I do agree that they are rare.  I also wonder if the reason for the rarity doesn’t lie somewhere within the above passage, specifically because deep down people “seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus.”

Priceless friendships require both parties to be seeking after Jesus with all of their hearts.  Both parties should be passionately seeking God’s will over their own, pouring over the Bible in prayer for answers.  They need to pray for each other, spend time with each other and be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s prompting to either exhort or listen to the other.   Pride and self-serving agendas should be put aside.   These are the prerequisites for priceless relationships.   

Finding one person meeting these prerequisites is hard enough to find…and a relationship takes two! Even Paul could only find Timothy to be genuinely concerned about the Philippians and I’m sure that even Timothy wasn’t all of these things all of the time.  I’m wondering how much richer our friendships would be if we all persistently sought God’s help to mold us into His image.  Maybe we could become priceless friends.

To ponder:
1.  Do you have what it takes to both “sharpen” and be “sharpened by a friend? (Pr 27:17)
2.  How much are you seeking God?
3.  Who do you need to become?