Work the Wait

We spend a lot of our lives waiting. We wait for the next vacation with anticipation of fun and freedom from work. We wait for the next morning in anticipation of all we can accomplish in a day. We wait for Sunday to arrive in hopes to be touched by God during Sunday morning service.

Sometimes, we wait when we should be actively pursuing.

Remember the adage "Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today"?

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”

 James 4:12-15

Vic and I are always anticipating our next move. We are always planning ahead, looking for signs that God is going to take us to a new place. We watch for the new seasons in our lives. We anticipate. And while we anticipate and we wait, we make ready.

If a new season is blowing in, we fast and pray. The last thing we want to do is walk out from under God's cloud or put out the fire by night. We seek His will for our lives and the lives of our children.

If a new day is dawning, we look for God's hand in it. We find the things to be thankful for and lift them to the Lord as a form of worship. We trust Him to meet our every need, whether physical, spiritual, or financial. We set our hands to do the work required, and we tithe our first fruits.

And we never wait until Sunday morning for a touch from God. We actively pursue Him every minute of every day that we draw breath.

When planning a vacation, nobody sits and waits until the last minute. We buy our plane tickets, we make our reservations, we plan out the fun activities we're going to do.

We don't start tomorrow without finishing what we can today. We make to-do lists and think ahead. We brainstorm ideas for new products or creative pursuits. We clean the messes so we can start fresh.

Why should waiting be any different? Why shouldn't we plan ahead? Why shouldn't we count the costs? Why shouldn't we hope for something new, something refreshing, something better? Why sit around and do nothing? We aren't guaranteed tomorrow, but we have today. We need to do all that we can within it.

I challenge you today to stop waiting without action. Brainstorm. Hope. Plan. Enjoy the process. Enjoy the journey. And then let God bring it to pass.