Well, I was 5 minutes late to putting more coins in the parking meter! And the result…a $14.00 parking ticket! Oh, that just irks me so! I think parking meters are of the devil. Its just bad business to charge customers to park. Anyways, today’s devotional is about patience. So, I am thankful for the opportunity to put patience into practice in a tangible way. Yes, my timing was off and I paid for it! Thankfully, when waiting on God… His timing is never “off”. I can trust that He will not tarry too long nor rush ahead too soon but will show up right on time!
It is interesting that two of the devotionals I have read over the last week from Streams in the Desert have been from Psalm 37. This Psalm is one I have been standing on over the last 4 years. I have added them for your benefit as well.
Why is patience so hard for us? I think it is a deep seeded need to control. Which is opposite of living in relationship. In a healthy relationship there is an absence of control or maybe at best in the human condition… an awareness of our controlling ways. Control is a desire for power which is at the root of our fallen nature. The only way for us to find freedom from control is in relationship that frees us from our need for control. Where unconditional love and trust exist… where each person is looking out for the needs of the other… where there is true servitude. At our best, we humans will fall short of this in human to human relating. Only in God, can we be truly safe to give up control.
Prayer… Father, Son and Spirit.. I desire to walk in relationship with you. To daily abide in your love and goodness. Help me to know how lost I am without you. Thank-you that I don’t have to measure up or feel pressure to be good.. to truly know that there is nothing I have to do for you to love me. NOTHING!! I have been so wounded and deceived. Continue to heal my heart and renew my mind. I invite you, gracious and Loving trinity to walk in relationship with me. Revive me. free me up! I love you. Jon
Wait With Patience
“Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him” (Ps. 37:7).
Have you prayed and prayed and waited and waited, and still there is no manifestation?
Are you tired of seeing nothing move? Are you just at the point of giving it all up? Perhaps you have not waited in the right way? This would take you out of the right place the place where He can meet you.
“With patience wait” (Rom. 8:25). Patience takes away worry. He said He would come, and His promise is equal to His presence. Patience takes away your weeping. Why feel sad and despondent? He knows your need better than you do, and His purpose in waiting is to bring more glory out of it all. Patience takes away self-works. The work He desires is that you “believe” (John 6:29), and when you believe, you may then know that all is well. Patience takes away all want. Your desire for the thing you wish is perhaps stronger than your desire for the will of God to be fulfilled in its arrival.
Patience takes away all weakening. Instead of having the delaying time, a time of letting go, know that God is getting a larger supply ready and must get you ready too. Patience takes away all wobbling. “Make me stand upon my standing” (Daniel 8:18, margin). God’s foundations are steady; and when His patience is within, we are steady while we wait. Patience gives worship. A praiseful patience sometimes “long-suffering with joyfulness” (Col. 1:11) is the best part of it all. “Let (all these phases of) patience have her perfect work” (James 1:4), while you wait, and you will find great enrichment. –C. H. P.
Hold steady when the fires burn,
When inner lessons come to learn,
And from this path there seems no turn
“Let patience have her perfect work.”
–L.S.P.
Trust and Rest
“Trust also in Him” (Ps. 37:3).
The word trust is the heart word of faith. It is the Old Testament word, the word given to the early and infant stage of faith. The word faith expresses more the act of the will, the word belief the act of the mind or intellect, but trust is the language of the heart. The other has reference more to a truth believed or a thing expected.
Trust implies more than this, it sees and feels, and leans upon a person, a great, true, living heart of love. So let us “trust also in him,” through all the delays, in spite of all the difficulties, in the face of all the denials, notwithstanding all the seemings, even when we cannot understand the way, and know not the issue; still “trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass.” The way will open, the right issue will come, the end will be peace, the cloud will be lifted, and the light of an eternal noonday shall shine at last.
“Trust and rest when all around thee
Puts thy faith to sorest test;
Let no fear or foe confound thee,
Wait for God and trust and rest.
“Trust and rest with heart abiding,
Like a birdling in its nest,
Underneath His feathers hiding,
Fold thy wings and trust and rest.”
Hello man! I really respect what you’re writing here. Keep posting that way.