"Wait on The Lord."

I feel that I'm often apologizing for the irregularity in the timing of my entries. It's a well known fact that if you're talking, you aren't learning, and the time in between each post is drawn out for that simple fact--God has a lot to teach me, and I have a lot to learn.

Some lessons are easier to learn than others. About a month ago, God made the next step in our journey very clear to me. "Wait on The Lord." ...Just what I wanted to hear. More waiting. I was confused (Hence my last two posts about Unbelief and The Year of Joy). And, as embarrassing as it is to admit, I wasn't happy. "...But Lord! We have our answer. We know what must be done." (Isn't it something that we always know what to do, even when God Himself is telling us differently?) He remained firm in His command for us to "wait."

There are many things that send us reeling into the past. It could be an old photo that pops up, a scent that sparks a faded memory, or a song that sends our minds into another time. This week, it was a prayer. I couldn't see it myself, so I asked God to show me ("If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God...and it will be given to him." --James 1:5), and suddenly I was reminded of another simple prayer that crossed my lips almost two years ago, long-forgotten but so clearly heard. On a Saturday morning in 2012, I had been driving to work when the words of a song pierced my heart and I was convicted to cry out. The words? "At the cross You beckon me, draw me gently to my knees and I am lost for words, so lost in love. Sweetly broken, wholly surrendered." I wanted that. Up until that point, I remember feeling like Christ had never really broken me, and I wanted to be broken, and so I prayed for brokenness. I prayed for a wholly surrendered heart.

It seems like a strange prayer, and maybe even a little crazy. As the memory returned, my first thought was, "What the heck was I thinking??" But then I remembered. The memories of every single thing Jesus had done in my life since then flooded back. That day in September when He promised He was "doing a work" in me. That day in November when we miscarried. All the days after when He met me in my anguish and grief and helplessness. All of the times that He helped me to stand and go on, when all I wanted was to quit. Every whisper of Love ministered to my heart in the grit of what had cracked me at the very core. The way He cleared away my unstable foundation so that He could set me upon the Rock. He was the very Healing Salve to living raw, my vulnerabilities open to the world, wound fresh. I was reminded of the fact that my deepest fear had occurred. The very thing I thought I couldn't live through--it happened. And Jesus used that very thing, that crippling and debilitating, ugly, awful thing, and He set me free.

Here I sit, two years later. A free child of His, and He asks me to wait. With the memories of all He has done still so fresh and dear to my heart, I am presented with another scene, another memory.

I am five, maybe six. I sit on the edge of the pool and dangle my feet into the water, swishing this way and that, watching the ripples lap against the side of the pool. I watch my older brother doggy-paddle through the water, my dad wading towards me, waist-deep in water. Today is the day I will learn to swim, self-sufficient, no floaties. My dad stops about three feet from where I sit, he in the water and I still dangling, comfortably safe on solid ground. He gently begins to coax me into the water, "Just jump! I will catch you. I promise." I stay. I stay where I'm comfortable. I stay where I know I won't drown. I stay dry. He calls again, "Do you trust me?" I shake my head up and down. Of course I trust him. "Then jump," he says.

Today I am twenty-five. (Twenty years later and I'm still learning the same lesson.) I sit on the edge of the pool and dangle my feet over the unknown. God is calling, "Jump. I promise I will catch you." I look out into the water, the ripples of His very movement and past faithfulness lapping against the walls of my life. "Don't you trust me, Child?" Will I stay where it's dry, where I'm comfortable? Or will I cannonball into His Arms, following into His "wait?"

I've been studying the Book of James. In the beginning of this Book you will find three of my favorite verses:

"Consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (James 1:2-4)."

I can't explain this verse more perfectly than the author of my study did:

"The NKJV says it like this: 'Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.' I don't know about you, but I feel a hundred country miles from perfect...sin-free is not what the word implies in this context. The Greek word for 'perfect' (teleios) describes 'that which has achieved or reached its goal, objective, purpose' and therefore, 'full-grown' and 'fully developed.' The teleios idea is that we grow up fully in Jesus during our tenure here on planet Earth, bearing much fruit, giving God glory, and not missing a single thing Christ died on the cross to give us" (I added the emphasis).

If that doesn't send you to your knees, I don't know what will. I've been shown in the past, that God's plan is greater than any desire that I have. He's also shown me that desires aren't terrible things...but I have learned (the hard way) that when we put too much emphasis on a desire, we are missing out on something far greater, something that Christ died to give us.

God knows this heart of mine. After all, He created it. Out of His love for this and every heart He has created (That's YOU!), He has also created the perfect plan for that heart. This plan "was intentional. It was personal." Every single circumstance He allows has the potential to perfect our hearts. I want that. I want everything Christ died to give me--every intentional and personal gift that is perfect for this heart. ..and so when He asks me to "wait," I know it's not because He is withholding something from me, but because He desires to bring me to perfection (in the teleios sense of the word!).

In closing, I'll refer once again to the words of this study's author, Beth Moore:

"Maybe you can see some 'good' but the whole idea of 'perfect' is completely foreign to you in such a flawed world, and if you're anything like me, a flawed life...Out of God's astounding grace, a very imperfect person can still receive a delightfully perfect gift precisely because it's perfect for her. God's gifts are given with goals. They're perfect because they're perfecting. They don't just give today. They give toward every tomorrow."

"So, what are you going to do with all you're going through?"

..at the risk of sounding extremely cheesy, (okay, no risk, it's definitely cheesy), "CANNONBALL!"