Finding Strength and Spiritual Insight In Moments of Waiting on God (3)

"Can life get any better than this?"

You get up from bed to a brand new day.
Well not really much the kind of newness you hoped to wake up to.
You look out the window, and you only see much of the familiar world you saw yesterday. Same circumstances... same questions... same struggles... same routine... same uncertainties.

You have learned to cope with all these by simply accepting it as part of your reality. The thought of change, wonderful as it may be, has become wishful thinking at most. You have stopped wishing, dreaming, believing. For you, what you see, is what you get.


There was a time you worked so hard,
believing things will become better if you only have the money for it.
But it proved to be an elusive dream.

There was a time when you felt strong and healthy,
able to  engage in any worthwhile activity under the sun,
able to pursue your plans and fulfill them.

There was a time when your relationships were a delight.
You were confident of a brighter tomorrow with family and friends.

But all of it came to a halt.
What happened?
You wished you knew...
But you've become tired of asking and wondering.
You've lost strength to hope for anything better than fate.

Who doesn't want a brand new day?
A progressive change for the better.
You know you were never lazy - you dreamed, you pursued them.
But to no avail.



Can I invite you to find hope anew?
This time, not on your dreams, pursuits, and circumstances...
But on the Lord Himself.

"Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary."               (Isaiah 40:31)

It's been said, "Life is what we make it."
Could this be true?
You know to a certain extent it is.
But you never thought you can never be fully in control of every desired outcome.
Such truth hurts our self-esteem at times.
It tells us that life's real success ultimately rests in the hands of the one who gave it - God.

We come to realize that He is not just the life giver.
He sustains it from day to day.
He leads it and uses it according to His purposes,
He determines and empowers success out of it, regardless.
If only this is surrendered to Him.

Through the seeming challenges and impossibilities we go through,
We find rest in the knowledge of His great love for us from day to day.
We cease struggling and reaching out for our own illusive source of hope and confidence,
Because we ultimately understand that it is not based there, but in Him alone.

We learn to understand that success, His way, is both a journey and a destiny.
We find our real significance in who we are in His sight - deeply loved, in spite of our inabilities.
We lean on Him, trusting Him to clear away the hurt, the fears, the anger, the doubts.
In our waiting moments, He replaces the former with His love, grace, peace, joy, and hope.



He leads us from day to day, and makes us see His beauty even through the harsh realities of life.
In the midst of our need, He reveals Himself as our Sufficiency.
In the midst of our pain, He becomes our Healer.
In the midst of our uncertainties, He is our Wisdom.
In the midst of our exhaustion, His joy becomes our strength.

We find in Him our real purpose and worthwhile pursuit in the midst of all these.
We are no longer struggling for what we feel should be ours.
Instead, we lavishly share what we have been graciously given,
to a world who's still burdened with care.


We cherish those who are presently with us 
- our family, our friends, our co-workers, our new acquaintances.
We learn to laugh with them, even cry with them.
We learn to acknowledge the good things we see in life, regardless of how few they may be.
We see possibilities of change in those which are currently in bad shape.
We redeem and use the little that we have for His greater purposes.
We extend a helping hand to the needy,
We give comfort to the sad and lonely.

If all of life's goodness is just dependent on human pursuit, then all is a loss.
In this life, everything is fleeting, here today and gone tomorrow.
The giver of life has designed it to be that way.
But in His goodness, He calls us to rest in His Sovereign knowledge and grace.
He calls us to surrender, to wait, to trust.
Not in a way that is resigned to life, ceasing to live out our unique God-given capacities.
But in a way that is actively abiding, actively waiting, taking our cue from Him - in everything.