Waiting on God?

“Waiting” (also known as patience) is something our Father is always trying to get us to learn. Here is my latest lesson …

When I first attended the Church of God, it was very common to hear people say, “I’m waiting on God.” As time went by, I began to understand just what they meant and how growing in faith played such a large part in being able to practice this very important principle.

Prayer is another important part. We are told to ask and to persevere in prayer. But we are also told to ask in faith and to wait patiently.

Usually when we pray for things, we pray for what we want or what we think we need. For me, it got to the point I felt like I was asking for everything under the sun and whining to God about every issue in my life. I asked my pastor about this, and he simply said to me, “Sis, just ask Him to supply you with your needs. He knows what you need.”

God does tell us to ask, but I think my asking had gotten excessive. It was helpful to remember that God knows what I need—even when He doesn’t answer right away.

Now the story behind this blog post!

About two years ago, we placed our house on the market. We wanted to sell our home and move to the country, to a place with more land and close to some very dear friends. I wouldn’t have to work any more, as our bills would be less.

We worked hard on our house and getting it ready to list. It was very time-consuming, hard work (as we did it all ourselves), and it took quite a bit of money. Then the Monday we returned from the Feast of Tabernacles in 2009, my husband got laid off. We continued to try to sell the house, but the bottom fell out of the market.

We began to pray and ask God why!

God supplied us with unemployment benefits or odd jobs to pay the bills. It was rough, but everything was being paid, we had food to eat and we still had our home.

My husband was unemployed for a very long 18 months. We went through so many trials during that time, most of which were financial in nature. With the help of our brethren and Church we managed to hang on to our home and to keep our bills paid and on time. Those prayers were always answered, and we could not understand why God did not answer the “please give me a job” prayer.

About two months ago we finally gave up on trying to sell the house in this depressed market. We took our house off the market (we had to physically remove the sign ourselves and call the agent several times to pick it up).

His time, not ours

We kept praying for my husband to find a job, even though it was getting discouraging. Then recently my husband started getting interviews and a few more odd jobs. Then he interviewed for a job on Tuesday, June 21, and he got the job on June 22 and started immediately! We are very thankful to God.

We don’t always know why God makes us wait. But we learned what “waiting on God” meant through all this. It wasn’t that He was not answering our prayers; He was doing it in His time, not ours!

“A man’s heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).

Dawn lives with her husband, Les, in Richmond, Virginia. They are members of the Williamsburg, Virginia, congregation of Church of God, a Worldwide Association. Dawn likes to read while Les likes to fish, which makes for wonderful days on the banks of the river for both of them.