“A” Plan Worth Waiting For!

4) Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. 7) Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Psalm 37: 4,7


“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11



Having grown up in conservative African American family in small town rural Arkansas, an almost frantic sense of importance was placed upon marriage. While largely unspoken, a woman’s quintessential worth was founded primarily in her ability to attain and maintain a marriage to a financially secure man. Even in high-school there was very real pressure to enter into serious dating relationships. It was not unheard of for high-schoolers and very young adults in my town to marry, cohabitate and parent children. Many of my friends had mothered and fathered beautiful children by my sophomore year in college. By the time I had graduated college, my older sister was married with her first child, and my brother two years my junior was married as well. Four years later, I walked across a stage in Nashville, Tennessee to receive a medical doctorate mere months after my kid brother and his bride waltzed down the aisle to the tinkle of wedding bells. My Gram would chide me regarding what else besides school and work I was doing with my life. I was clearly getting too old to have my own “chillun”, but it was okay since according to her, I would make a fine aunt. It seemed like EVERYONE on the planet but me was enjoying marital bliss. It wasn’t that I was not interested or didn’t have time to be in a serious relationship or married. It simply never happened. There were times in my early twenties that I felt extreme anxiety and isolation. Despite God’s clear signals to me that He was with me, and that I should wait for His choice in my life, I became rebellious and defiant. While God had a “Plan A” for my success and happiness in Him, I devised a “Plan B” that would give me a bit more instantaneous gratification. Oh boy was I mistaken! I made some pretty bad decisions and ended up dating all sorts of incongruent, confused and even abusive individuals who lacked the spiritual, psychological, academic, and provisional bedrock to support any semblance of a meaningful relationship. Every impulsive decision I made out of impatience toward God’s perfect will resulted in undeniable heartache, intense headache and recalcitrant spiritual injury that has required years of rehabilitation to mend. Impatience hurts our relationships, but to God be the glory! His word teaches those that seek Him not only how to wait, but also how not be weary!

Wait Happy!

Psalm 37:4 is a mandate with a promise: “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Now that my friends is good news! To delight in the Lord is to find joy in passionately pursuing a relationship with Him. You are not merely coming to God with a laundry list of requests, you meet God on a daily basis with anticipation that He will reveal more of Himself to you as time goes by. Just being in the presence of God the “fullness of joy” as described in Psalm 16:11! Because you delight yourself in the Lord, He finds pleasure in recompensing your sincerity with your heart’s desire. Have you ever entered into praise before you prayer was answered. Your heart was just full to overflowing with love for God, that you forgot about your wait and worry. Before you could even ask God to meet the need, you looked around and it was already done! Maintain a compliant spirit of obedience and submission to the will of a God who you know and love personally. Be assured by the Word that we must “not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9

Count it all joy!

James 1: 2-5 reads “2) My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3) Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4)But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. 5) If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” Know that God in His infinite wisdom knows what He is doing your life. He sees the challenges, or “temptations” in your life (v. 2) Be happy in knowing that our Lord sees and cares about the tiniest detail. While it may feel like your projects, goals and aspirations are on pause, know that there are critical lessons to be learned about yourself and more importantly, the perfect will of God for your life. As we read in James 1:4, it is God’s desire that His work in us be more than good. God desires to complete a perfect work in us. He sees us in the future as whole and entire, wanting nothing! When we become anxious and impatient, we fail to recognize the refining and creative power for the Holy Spirit at work in our everyday. Let God finish the good thing that has begun in you. Functioning as spiritually incomplete and immature people, whether at school, in the church or in our families, can lead to resentment of the plan of God. This can ultimately give way to disobedience and deter us from the greatness that God seeks to cultivate in us.

Running Out of Time?

As believers, we sometimes fall for the enemy’s lie that we are running out of time. God has forgotten about our situation somehow and we have to handle it all by ourselves. Maybe we find that we are short on cash, so we resort to unethical or even illegal means to get funds. At other times we decide not to wait on God for the proper companion, only to find ourselves compromising for the world’s “love” and entering into sexual sin. Sadly, we are left with the coinciding shame that follows. I have even seen zealous new Christians settle into speaking in rehearsed and taught tongues in a shameful act of desperation to quickly fit into the spiritual in-crowd. God is not on your time schedule or mine. Ecclesiastes 3:11 is one of my favorite passages in the Bible: "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” You are not running out of time. God will surely finish His work in you!

Wait Courageously!

Waiting on God takes some degree of courage. It can initially be lot easier to try doing things our own ways. We can choose to settle for less, but it can never bring us real contentment. Know that when you wait on God, He provides you with everything you need to endure. God’s answer to “wait” is not a denial or rejection. It is an open opportunity for you to enter into the love and protection of an eternal God. Your wait is temporal. Faithful patience in God, leads us into long-lasting communion with the Father. We begin to recognize Him as the Source of our strength and the light of our lives. I am encouraged to wait on God whenever I read Isaiah 40: “28) Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. 29) He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. 30) Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 31) But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. “ Let us courageously wait on our indefatigable God!

Dr.’s Orders:  Psalm 27:14 compels us to “Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.”

1) Identify areas of your own life where you are not waiting on the Lord. Has your impatience allowed for the introduction of sin? If so confess what you have done to the Lord and re-establish a guilt-free communication with Him by turning away from the sin.
2) Ask God to increase your faith in this trouble area and to empower you with the willingness to wait on His leading. Talk to your pastor or an accountability partner regarding how you plan to remain free from impatience leading to sin.
3) Read Jeremiah 29:11. Recognize your individuality in God. Pray that He will continue to reveal His plan for your life to you each day. Know that you are special to God and that your true destiny is worth waiting for!