How to get from here to there

Wait for the LORD;
be strong,
   and let your heart take courage;
yea,
     wait for the LORD!

                          Psalm 27. 14

Immediately when I got out of bed this morning, I was thinking about my agenda for the day.  I grabbed my coffee and abided with God's Word, my heart already racing for the next thing.

But something happened in reading Scripture.  No surprise there. Something always happens when God's Word is opened.  It changes me.

I was not distracted from reading God's Word by my pace and circumstances.  But God distracted me from my own agenda for the day.  He did not just slow me down.  He showed me something different.  Abiding with God in His Word always changes the course of my day.  Circumstances may or may not change, but my heart does.

O God, distract me to Your deeper design.

"The only thing harder than waiting on the LORD is not waiting on Him," says pastor, speaker and friend Crawford Loritts.  He nails it on the head.

How am I missing out because I don't wait on the LORD?

"Quiet my heart to Your purposes, O LORD."  The biggest obstacle to waiting is simply not wanting to.  Too much to do! I most urgently need to wait when I think, "No problem, God, I've got this."  When I think that, I know I don't. 

There is a reason for waiting. It is not that God is not ready, but my own lacking. God is always and in all ways fulfilling His purposes.

Yesterday, I sat in a doctor's waiting room, a little longer than expected.  But I knew that there were deep reasons for the delay beyond my own understanding, and far deeper than I could see in this room of chairs.

And instead of bemoaning the time, I relished it.  I pulled out my back pack and started to work.

Waiting is never passive, but actively seeking God in whatever the situation.

Why do I feel anxious?
Because I didn't wait first.

Wait, be still,
       and listen.

God may put something on my radar I never considered before.  God will always put something on my heart.

And that would be Him.