With the closing of the chapter of our lives of 2023, we must take time to reflect where God’s providence marked our steps. With the turning of a calendar year, we feel compelled to release old habits and cultivate new plans for purposeful growth.
Reflecting over the days that are a memory, we have places in our lives where we embrace waiting. We wait for a new year “to begin” - we wait to meet decisions with a sense of ease - and we wait because we think there is always tomorrow.
Waiting can be necessary in a season as God fortifies our lives for plans ahead. In purposeful waiting, God places us in the solace of His care in preparation for what He has ordained to unfold in our lives.
There are times, though, when we can miss God’s great purposes and plans for our lives as we settle into seasons of waiting. We wane in forward motion because waiting is our indecision clouded in a state of comfort, which in turn is the decision not to take the next step.
We settle into waiting because we wonder. In our wondering, we overanalyze, seek redundant advice, and ruminate on questions of uncertainty.
Other times, we settle into waiting because we wander. We wander from the true source of direction and guidance without focusing our pursuit on clarity from God. We settle for the here and now and momentary happiness. The best that God has for us is found on a steady path away from our aimless wandering in the wilderness.
As the Israelites were journeying from the wilderness to the land of Israel as promised by God, they were met with the Jordan River at flood stage. Waiting would have seemed to be the logical next step as they could have wondered how to safely cross a raging river at the time of harvest. They too could have decided to wander from the path of instruction to find a different man-made path and miss God’s purposes.
Yet, they chose to trust God and wait no more – the season of trusting, pressing forward and stepping with faith was upon them.
“God said, ‘This is how you know the living God is among you…as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the Lord – the Lord of all the earth – set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand in a heap.’”
“As soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away…The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground.”
The beauty of this story shows us that waiting is only meant to be a temporary season in our lives. In the waiting, God is at work and when the timing is right, we are released from the season of waiting. We are to wait no more. Our feet too must touch the water’s edge and we know that provisions fortified in our season of waiting will create a firm, dry, solid ground for our path ahead.
As the new year soon unfolds, we wait no more. We know now is the time to lean in, pursue wholeheartedly, pivot toward, trust confidently, and press forward in faith into God’s beautiful plans with His clarity as our compass ahead. ~
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