Yes, Abraham waited and waited upon the Lord God to fulfill His promise of a son to him and Sara for a very long time. The Word tells us that he did not waver, did not weaken in faith regarding the promises of God concerning him and his descendants. In hope he believed against hope that what the Lord God Almighty had promised him would indeed take place. You can find all of this in Romans the fourth chapter. Yet, in all truth, I am not Abraham. His walk is certainly an encouragement to me as are all of the true stories of faith within the Scriptures. However, I struggle in our season of waiting.
As of this very next week, we will have believed in hope for five years and eight months that the Lord Jesus was leading us into a new season of ministry. After our last and all too very trying season Pastoring, we believed we were being called out to something “new”, for us. We still, after all of this time, believe that the Lord Jesus is not finished with us yet and that our season of effectual and maybe not always effective ministry isn’t yet over.
It wasn’t long after we left our last Pastorates, yes plural, that we realized how needful of healing and restoration we were. So, we settled into an uneasy acceptance that we should begin our waiting upon the Lord Jesus, seeking for His restoration of our hearts and lives and for His calling to continue forth in and through our lives. We were very aware that we deeply desired a change and so we waited for the Lord’s clarity as to what it was that He was calling us into next.
In the interim, we used our gifts in ministering to other shepherds who had need of them, traveled in ministry a bit and after a couple of years finally settled into the realization that we might be waiting much longer than we had first hoped or expected. This led to jobs, closed doors, layoffs, closed doors, relocation, closed doors and back to new jobs and closed doors. Hence this summary leads us up to the current point of our waiting and the five years eight months mark.
Oh yes, we have had those, through out this season, who would remind us of our calling, anointing and need to be active in His ministry. Oh how we have longed, yes, even desperately longed for His release into the calling of His life and ministry once again, over and yet over again. The crying out of our hearts and souls for the taste, smell and unction of His anointing in active on going ministry comes as waves over and over with momentary times, yes days of acceptance of our need to wait yet longer. For in truth, our lives are not ours at all, they are His forever more. Our calling isn’t ours but rather it is His gift unto to us to join Him in that which He is doing, being and saying unto and within His Body. Oh yes, the cries of our hearts for the more of the Lord Jesus Christ rise up within us as wells of living waters only to subside unfulfilled with the hoped release.
During this season we have sought to be ever faithful in all that He has put in our path or to those whose paths we periodically would cross by or through. We have sought to grow as a family, enjoying ever so wonderfully our increasing family of grandchildren. We have sought to value even more our closeness together and love for one another. However, we have also sought to be faithful in His Word, in Prayer and in witness. Seeking to keep ever-present within our hearts and lives the truth of His calling and ever accompanying faithfulness regardless of what it is that He is asking of us during this time, this season of life and living. We have sought to stay expectant, anticipating His releasing us into what it is that He has for us to join with Him in being, doing and saying aside from that which is currently taking place.
Hope, a confident expectation and anticipation of that which He has promised, remains within us still, but I admit that I wrestle more with it being a hope of release into our role in the ministry and not being a hope that He will simply see me/us through each and everyday of our now lives in the Lord Jesus Christ making the best of it as we can. I wrestle more and more that just maybe He really only desires that we would face this season of our lives in some kind of faithful living with no expectation of really every returning to “the call.” Yes, we have sought His peace, His acceptance, of valuing this time as a season of growth, learning and observation, of character building, of life lessons increasing our understanding and capacity for His ministry to take place wherever we are or what ever role we would find ourselves being called to live and walk out. In truth we have, by the grace and mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then, suddenly, something happens. I mean, He, our precious Lord meets us in a very powerful and personal way, stirring up within us, all of that which He has placed within us through the years of our walk with Him. We are then once again stirred up into an expectation that it is soon to be a time of release. And then, over the weeks, months or now even years that follow, there seems to be a settling into the rhythm of everyday life, with that now much lessened undercurrent of hope looking forward towards a release into the role of ministry once again. The longing becomes much more painful and no longer a joy to look for, simply because it seems more and more that five years and eight months could become much, much longer than we had every thought possible.
So here we are, five years and eight months later, with no visible end in sight, becoming more and more isolated and ever distant from that which we have known of His ministry through us unto the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ. As for purpose, only He knows. As for how long, only He knows. As for what the future holds, it seems to simply be, more waiting because He is the only one who knows for certain what it is that we are waiting for and what it takes to get us there. We therefore choose, by His grace and mercy, to keep waiting, trusting, hoping and looking unto Him even when it is at times so very painfully difficult.
