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The Waiting Is The Hardest Part....

by Shannon Heiden  
1/21/2009 / Devotionals

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall soar on wings like eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31

Years ago Tom Petty wrote a song called "The Waiting." I really didn't tune into Tom growing up; he wasn't one of my favorites, although I was familiar with his music. After Tom did the half time show at Superbowl 42 in 2008, the songs he sang during the show peaked my curiosity. I felt inspired by the words "I wont back down" and the song "freedom." After remembering hearing them countless times growing up as a teenager in the 80's, I found myself really hearing the words for the first time during that show.

I decided to go and buy his album and as I was listening over and over to the song "the waiting" I realized that "the waiting" is one of the hardest thing's I have ever had to do in my walk with the Father.

For over a year now I have found myself in a waiting period, a transitional place in my life unlike any other time before in my Christian walk. I am not back there, yet I am not there. I am unfamiliar in my surroundings and uncertain of exactly what the Lord is doing. Having everything shaken in my life and just standing in what I know He has told me, I am learning to wait on Him and His timing...

This has not been easy. If the decision was left up to me, I am afraid I would have opted for a much easier route, but then His ways are not our ways and that's a good thing!

Why is it that we can be so sure of the Lord with some things, and be so weak in other things? Just when you think your faith is strong and fortified, a crisis hits and you find yourself cowering in the midst of adversity, or one can think that they truly trust the Lord, and then a trial, test or temptation comes and you find yourself battling the enemy within that was lying dormant and in wait for the right time to rise up?

How is it that the promise is so easy to believe but from the time the promise is given until it comes to fruition, the "in between time," the waiting is the hardest part?

It is so easy to believe in the beginning of a thing and trust that the Lord has spoken and promised to deliver. We start out that way, we stand in all confidence, we're even bold in our convictions, but as time passes, as pressure mounts, as trials, tears and pleas seem to go unheard and even unnoticed by the Lord, it is the waiting, the trusting, the pressing through and standing in faith that seems so difficult.

The "what if's" come. What if I didn't hear him, what if I did something wrong, what if it doesn't happen, what if I should've done this or that and it goes on and on.

But Isaiah said "those that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings like eagles." What an interesting and profound truth the man of God shares with believers today. Strength is renewed in the waiting. To mount up requires that one would be in a low place first. What hope this truth has given me in this desert place I find myself in. Waiting yet strength is renewed, waiting yet I am mounting up, waiting yet I can run and not be weary, waiting yet when I walk through this desert I shall not faint.

Yes, the promise will come to pass, but until the timing of the Lord is perfected and He accomplishes everything in us that He desires, let us embrace the journey of the waiting. For that is where we will be strengthened, raised up and we will soar on wings like eagles.

Above all, we will make it if we don't give up. We will pass through, we will see the other side of whatever we are facing. For with God nothing shall be impossible! Take heart my friend, and be sure of this; waiting, it is the hardest part but it was even harder when we had it our way. When we didn't have the promise, the Savior, or the waiting.....

Shannon Heiden
[email protected]
changingonelifereachingmany.typepad.com

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