Tag Archives: waiting on God

Don’t Stand Still

I was recently speaking with a high school student about their college plans. They said they didn’t know what they were going to study yet because they were waiting to hear from God. I encouraged them to at least enroll in the basics and begin the process of college. I explained that with the Great Commission each one of us have already been called to go into all the world. It honestly didn’t matter what degree they chose because God would use them in whatever field they went into. Plus God requires that we take the first step of faith before He moves. 

So many Christians sit around their whole lives and waste decades waiting to hear from God before they do anything for the Kingdom. The truth is that if you’re doing Kingdom work, God will bless it. He can’t give an increase unless you sow some seeds. In the parable of the sower, he was throwing seed everywhere hoping some would stick. The ones that fell in good soil produced a hundred times what was sown. Imagine if he had waited on God to tell him where to throw. Those seeds may have stayed in the bag forever.

Proverbs 16:3 says, “Ask the Lord to bless your plans, and you will be successful in carrying them out. (GNT)” You have to make plans before you can commit them to Him. You cannot sit and wait for God to give you plans. Make them, commit them to Him and then ask Him to bless them.  This is another example in scripture where we act first and then God moves. We make the plans and then the Lord blessed them. We carry out the plans and He makes them successful. The verse clearly says, “You will be successful in carrying them out.”

We can spend a lifetime planning and waiting, but God is looking for those who will carry out their plans. So much potential goes unrealized because we are waiting on God when He is waiting on us. He already gave us the command to go. Why do we then sit and wait for Him to tell us exactly where? You can pretty much go anywhere, spread the seeds of the Gospel by doing whatever for the Kingdom and God will bless it. All the world includes your job, where you live and the people you interact with. It doesn’t have to be to so where on the continent of Africa.

Not everyone is called to go to a foreign country, but all of us are called to go somewhere. Not all of us will be in full time ministry, but we are called to be ministers wherever we go. Not all of us can preach, but all of us can say something about what God has done. Don’t let waiting on God become an excuse that keeps you from doing something for God. Don’t sit around wasting your life waiting to hear from God for exact directions. Abraham was told to go and then he would be told where. It’s the same for you and I. If you step out, God will provide the direction. He can’t guide and direct you if you’re not moving though.

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Stuck In The Waiting

This is a guest post from a friend and I felt like it needed a second look today.

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God.…
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

T. S. Eliot, “East Coker”

I read these words in Philip Yancey’s book “Disappointment with God”. I was going through a brutal spell in my life. If you’ve read the book, maybe it helped. But it didn’t help me. In fact it just made me feel worse for all the people referenced in the book as well as for myself.

Why do bad things happen to generally decent people? I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I’ll ever understand this side of heaven. It might be better if I stopped asking. But there are few things that haven’t escaped me. Maybe they were rungs on the ladder that kept me hitting rock bottom. Here they are:

I’m not in control. Even if I was, I don’t know what’s best for me.

It’s true – and actually this struck me when things were going well. What do you do when the things that happened by “chance” turned out better than your carefully laid plans? This had been the case a couple different times and while I was overwhelmed with gratitude, it eerily bothered me. When my tides turned, I realized that it goes both ways. In the end, I’m not God. I don’t know what’s best for me, I can’t see the big picture of God’s plan for me and I can’t control all the outcomes in my life. Living by faith means accepting both the good and the bad and realizing both are temporal. Accepting the fact that life isn’t fair helps too.

Take responsibility. Don’t sabotage myself.

If you’ve ever wondered if your life could get any worse, let me clear that up for you real quick. The answer is always yes. That may sound like a morbid thing to say, but the truth is that we’re always one decision away from making things much worse. And when things aren’t going well, we’re in the DANGER ZONE. Think about it: if you’re stuck in a crummy job, you are only one decision away from not having a job at all. If your marriage is going poorly, you are only one decision or one conversation away from a further setback. If you aren’t married and wish you were, you are one or several decisions away from creating a lot more misery for yourself and others.

It’s tempting to say that “God wills” my circumstances to be what they are and then act like a victim. But actually we’re usually our own worst enemy. Proverbs 19:3 says, “People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the Lord” (NLT). When the chips are down, the temptation is even stronger to make foolish choices that add to our pain.

We can’t always control our circumstances, but in every situation, we always have a choice of how to respond. And that means we have the responsibility to make a good choice, no matter how good or bad circumstances are.

Realize my pain will be able to be used in a positive way in the future.

If someone had said this to me when I was down, it would’ve brought me up real fast… swinging. That’s not what I wanted to hear. But unfortunately, not “just anyone” said these words. They came from Viktor Frankl in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, recounting his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz. They were also shared by psychologists to the survivors of the PanAm Flight 73 hijacking in 1986 as they prepared to board their next flight.

Those folks have “cred” in my book. I may not like the message, but I can take it coming from them. When I’m hurting, the last thing I want is “some perspective,” but even so, they’ve had far worse than me.

If you’re in pain, there is a sense in which you’re alone. Proverbs 14:10 says, “Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can fully share its joy” (NLT). No one else can walk your path for you and you may not see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know I couldn’t. When we’re stuck “in the waiting,” as Eliot’s poem says, we likely won’t be able to see the redemption in our circumstances. It’s only by faith that we can believe that this too shall pass.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach and thought leader. Visit him today at NathanMagnuson.com or follow him on Twitter.

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Your Piece of The Puzzle

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I prayed something this morning that I’ve never prayed before. I prayed for someone I don’t know to do what only they can do. I’m a big believer that others are waiting on the other side of your obedience. When God asks you to do something, no matter how small, large, crazy, odd or illogical, it’s not necessarily just for you. It’s to line things up for someone else to be able to do what God has asked them to do. So this morning, I not only prayed for courage to step out in faith to do my part in obedience to help someone else, I prayed for the person I’m waiting on.

When we’re in that moment of waiting on God to move to show us a sign of what’s next, it’s dependent on someone else’s obedience. We keep asking God to show us or to move on our behalf, but today, I decided to pray for the person who needs to do their part so that my part will line up. When my part lines up and I step out in faith, it will release the next person who is waiting on me. Our steps of faith are never just for our own benefit.

I work on secret projects at work all the time. Because it’s a highly competitive industry, I don’t get all the information. I get just enough to do my part. I’m not allowed to reach out and ask others if they’re working on the same project or what their part is. The people higher up know what each piece of the puzzle looks like and assigns different people to work on different pieces. Once each of us completes our work and submits it, the higher ups put it all together and then I can see how it all fits together and makes sense.

Stepping out in faith and obedience is just like that. Each of us have a piece to a puzzle that is much larger than ourselves. Our responsibility isn’t to complete someone else’s part. It’s to do what God asked us to do. It doesn’t matter how small you may feel your piece is. In a puzzle, every piece is important. In faith, each of our parts is important. It doesn’t matter if you have a corner piece or a center piece, what you do in faith today matters to the whole of what God is doing.

If you aren’t happy with how small you feel your piece is, remember Matthew 25:23. Jesus used a parable to teach us that if we were faithful in the small things, He would make us ruler over many. When you show God you’re willing and able to do the things that seem small in your eyes, He will know He can trust you with the things that seem larger in your eyes. Our faithfulness activates God’s trust in us and allows Him to give us more than we have now.

What has God asked you to do in faith, but you’ve been holding out on doing because it seems menial? What have you been asking God to do in your life that you haven’t seen any movement on? Pray for those who need to do their part in faith that will put you in position to receive from God what you’ve been waiting for. Do what you’ve been asked of God to do so that those who are waiting on your piece can do what God asked of them. Your piece, no matter how small, is important to God’s plan as a whole.

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