What’s the Wait All About?

Psalm 19:1-4(NLT)
1 The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. 2 Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. 3 They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. 4 Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world.

Most of us know that we can’t get anywhere in life without the blessing of our Heavenly Father. He makes everything possible for us. Therefore, we know that when we have a need, we have to take it to the Lord in prayer. Philippians 4:6(NLT) tells us, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” Most of us understand this verse with crystal clarity, but it’s the waiting that causes us to question if marriage is going to happen for us. Single women, I know you hear me on this one. I’ve spoken to many single women of faith about the subject of waiting for the Lord to bless them to meet their husbands. We all agree that waiting on an answer to our prayers is often the most challenging part.

Society has taught us many things, and one of them is impatience. We think we can have what we want by speeding up the process so we can get it quicker. This is an approach that doesn’t work for those that are in Christ. Galatians 5:22 tells us that patience is a fruit of the Spirit. It’s a state of being, which makes it more than a feeling or attitude. It’s manifested inwardly by the Spirit and manifested outwardly through our actions and behaviors. The Spirit’s fruit is the nature of God’s children. It’s part of who we are, and it must be worked out in our hearts and minds to the point where our faith makes patience feel right at home.

Philippians tells us not to be anxious about what we are praying to receive. Anxiety about it means that fear is lurking about somewhere, and it’s causing our faith to take a backseat. So, we have to order our prayer lives in such a way that growing in patience and faith becomes our priority. The blessing of a husband is such a sweet reward, but it’s not the greatest prize. Growing our faith in God and tightening our relationship with Him is the real treasure. We have to know the difference between these two and prioritize them appropriately in our minds and hearts.

The Book of Genesis tells us that after Adam and Eve sinned against God by disobeying His Word, they hid themselves in shame. In Genesis 3:12(NLT), we learn a great deal about the shame of sin, and how most human beings handle this. Rather than accepting responsibility for the wrong he did and seeking God’s forgiveness with earnest sorrow, Adam said, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.” The first man deflected and played the blame game. This demonstrates the human tendency to deflect, dodge, and hide from what we’ve done wrong as well.

Increasingly our environment is one in which we run from blame and run from the truth. We do it so much in fact that our society is losing its grasp on discernment. It’s grown so used to a lie that it no longer recognizes the truth. As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, the way that we reject the actions of Adam and Eve and reject society’s poor judgment and refusal to love the truth is to do the opposite of what they have done. We must be lovers of God’s truth. The degree to which we love God’s truth will be on full view by our accountability for not obeying it. We have to come clean about not meeting God’s requirements during some of the situations we’ve gone through in life.

We can’t sweep that stuff under the rug as if the sin never occurred. We must repent, and when we do, God forgives us, but true repentance requires a change of heart and a change of mind. We shouldn’t continue with the same sins over and over again. How we honor God with reverence and obedience determines our ability to steward and handle His blessings. He is always watching and observing us. He’s not doing this to punish us. 2Chronicles 16:9 tells us that He’s looking for an opening to come in so He can bless us with our desires. We should be praying and seeking His guidance on how to do this, how to invite His blessing and fully put on His armor so we can grow stronger spiritually.

It would not be wise to ignore the reality that there is always a reason behind the wait, and that it usually has to do with our readiness to make room for the blessing. All of us think we’re ready, but if the man stepped in right this moment, many of us would place our commitment to God on the backburner and go all in with the relationship. Our commitments would change. Our priorities would change, and we have not even thought about how to navigate issues of intimacy in a way that pleases God. We’d be so thrilled to finally have an opportunity for love that we’d give over our hearts completely, when truly they are not ours to give.

Our hearts belong to God, but whether we are giving them to Him totally and completely is another story. For many years, we’ve underestimated the commitment and intimacy that God desires from us. We’re easily manipulated to shortchange Him and ourselves, and this cannot be. God is a Father! What does a father do? He looks after His kids. Whether we trust it or not, this is what the wait is all about. God is grooming us, helping us to cultivate the obedience, humility, and love for Him that a child of light must have. He’s helping us to develop spiritual strength so that when storm winds blow in our future marriages, we will not buckle from the pressure. We’ll stand strong and prove that following God’s Will and Word is the firm foundation that holds up our lives and preserves the unity of our marriages as well.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.