Are You Willing To Wait
Ellie Hoyt is a recent college graduate as of this past weekend! She is about to go off on an exciting adventure as she move to Nashville, TN this July!! “I’m very excited to be a guest writer and share what’s on my heart because I believe God is downloading all kinds of amazing messages, words, images, and visions to His children. Sharing what God has placed on our hearts is such a cool and personal way to build the Kingdom.”
We are so excited to welcome Ellie to our Guest Writer line-up and are so excited for you to read her blog.
Read below, comment, and join the conversation! XO, the Boldly Seeking Team
Being someone who has tested 91% extroverted, an 8 on the Enneagram and constantly overbooks themselves because they love the busy life, I can honestly say that I struggle to find the patience to wait. I like the busy, go go go and simply hate waiting around. One of my biggest pet peeves is hanging around the dinner table at a restaurant after we are done eating. I immediately want to leave. Don’t get me wrong I absolutely love sitting on the deck relaxing or laying on the couch. I think it’s the idea of waiting around that just irks me and makes me very uncomfortable.
So as I dug into the word “wait” I found that my definition of waiting is different than what it really means. I saw waiting as a state of wasting time when you could be doing something more fun, productive, exciting, you get the picture. But the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines wait in multiple ways… to stay in place in expectation of, to look forward expectantly, to remain stationary in readiness or expectation, to be ready and available.
Since I was a little kid I have dreamed some pretty big dreams. I dreamed of traveling the world, preaching to millions, becoming an Olympic gymnast (that did not happen), and it became very natural for me to think big. As I got older I found that being a very futuristic person and a big dreamer, I never really wanted to sit in the present. I was always looking forward to what’s next. Whenever I thought of waiting for the future I immediately thought of being at a complete stop. Not moving forward, not moving backward but completely still. If I have to wait, that means I can't go. This way of thinking was holding me back from God’s greatest in my life. God was needing me to wait in order to go.
We live in a very busy world. In a world that stresses the importance of booking out your entire calendar, posting about every little adventurous thing you do, and accomplishing any and everything. This pressure makes people feel like they have to go, go, go in order to be successful. Now, hear me out, the grind is real. You do have to work hard in life to be successful but there is a need for waiting. There is a time for busy schedules, late nights and early mornings, traveling, doing, seeing, being and anything that can push us to achieve our goals but in the midst of all of that doing God showed me the importance of waiting.
Waiting on what exactly?
The answer became quite simple for me. Him. Waiting on Him.
So what does that mean?
All over the Bible we see verses telling us to wait on God. But what does that look like? I always read the verses like Psalm 27:14, Psalm 37:7, Micah 7:7, and many more that talk about waiting on the Lord as a posture of silence and surrender. Never in my mind was waiting, an active thing. This is where the Lord opened my eyes to a new way of thinking. I was spending some time in prayer on this idea of waiting and out of nowhere I saw a picture of an actual waiter. He was holding pen and paper and asking his guest what he could do for them.
God then proceeded to impress the idea on my heart that I was supposed to take His order. I was supposed to wait on the Lord and ask Him what I could do for Him. I quickly realized that waiting on the Lord was not just a posture of surrender but an honor. Waiting on the Lord was an opportunity to partner with Him to advance His Kingdom. This waiting involves asking the Lord what He wants me to do and sometimes that does mean sit still and other times it means go.
God shifted my thought process on what waiting meant for me in this season of my life. So now, let's pocket this idea of what the Lord revealed to me and look at the disciples in a situation where they had to wait.
Acts 1:4-5 says,
“Being assembled with them, Jesus commanded them, “Do not depart from Jerusalem, but WAIT for the promise of the Father, of which you have heard from Me. For John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
I think this passage is huge. Jesus is reminding His disciples of the Lord’s Promise but telling them they have to wait. When looking at this passage we focus a lot on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (which is huge!!) But I also believe that there is another very important principle in this piece of scripture, which is the fact that Jesus doesn’t tell them how long they are going to have to wait. He never said a specific time. He says “not many days from now…” but in order to receive the Holy Spirit they had to wait.
Here’s where my original thought process of waiting and my new perspective of waiting mesh together. The disciples did have to physically wait like Jesus commanded them to. He told them not to go but they would receive the Holy Spirit if they waited. I believe this took a lot of faith and trust from the disciples.
But even the disciples tried to ask for clarity and more detail in verse 6, it says “So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
I find myself in seasons of my life being like the disciples here. I am always asking God for more detail and clarity. I believe we serve a God of clarity and transparency but I also think we serve a God who honors faith and truly wants us to walk by faith and not by sight. It would be really easy to follow God’s plan and never get side tracked or off course if we knew every single intricate detail. What would be the point of faith then? I believe this is where the Lord meets us and partners with us in order to carry out the plans He has for us.
When Jesus responds He doesn’t tell them the answer they are exactly looking for but He does remind them of the fulfillment of the promise. God is constantly reminding us every day of His goodness and faithfulness even if we have no idea what's next.
The disciples had two choices: obey and wait or go on with their lives in the way they wanted to.
Thank you Jesus they chose obedience. They chose to wait on the Lord in the upper room in order to receive the promise that Jesus had told them about which then led to the disciples being able to wait on the Lord and take His order for what was next.
This is an example of both perspectives of waiting working in perfect unity. You see, I believe God wants two major things from us; a willing heart and an obedient heart. He wants us to stay in a place of expectation and availability so that we can say “Yes” to His order for our lives.
It’s never we HAVE to with God but always we GET to.
I want to encourage you to find what waiting looks like in this season of your life right now. It may be that posture of surrender, it could be taking the Lord's order or obeying what He last asked you to do.
Just remember, you never know who is on the other side of your obedience.
-Ellie Hoyt
Be blessed, be encouraged, and be the hands and feet of Jesus as we further the Kingdom of God.
