Tag Archives: Patience

What’s the Hold Up?

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Connecting Points

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Today’s Topic: Held Up By Promises                                               

Today’s Text:  Psalm 119:116-117 (ESV)  Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live, and let me not be put to shame in my hope! 117 Hold me up, that I may be safe and have regard for your statutes continually!

One of the past traditions of our family when the kids were young was that we would spend Thanksgiving at my brother’s house in Chicago. What a riot! Women shopping, men golfing, kids hiding and playing all over the four-story house: great memories.

Every year we would load up the car and head out from the Chippewa Valley on Wednesday afternoon. Without fail, as soon as the Hormel chili can came into view at Beloit, Wisconsin, the traffic would come to a complete stop. It would take us over an hour to travel the next few miles to the first toll booth on the Illinois expressway. The first time we ever made the trip and we got to that spot, I remember saying out loud, “What’s the holdup?”

Sometimes we say that to God. We have heard His promises and expect immediate results. When we don’t get the results when we thought we would, our impatience, generated by our prideful desire to have everything work out our way, makes us question the very nature of the promise. We may even question the integrity of the One making the promise. So instead of being upheld by the promise, we think we are being held up by it.

On Tuesday God designed the last Connecting Points devotional in such a way that it addressed this very issue of being held up in the life of a friend from church. With his permission, I share what God is doing in his heart with you. The background you need to know is this – he and his wife are in the process of adopting a little boy from another country, and while other families doing the same are having their process move forward, my friend’s process is being held up. In fact, they had just received an email from the adoption agency that stated that it could be another few months before they would get to go pick up their son. My friend did not react well to that news, but God worked through it with Him to bring further growth to his faith. Here is how he writes it:

I was thinking over your devotional from yesterday and I find it kind of funny how we can react to “perceived promises”… We had never been given a specific promise of a court date. We were never specifically told that we would travel at the end of January, but rather we were told that we might or could possibly travel AROUND that time. 

My initial reaction yesterday was not good. As I thought about the situation, I got jealous of other’s situations. I felt it was unfair that they had moved along faster than us. I got angry that our agency had been leaving us in the dark. All these things I was feeling put me in a downward spiral of thought.

Thankfully that spiral didn’t last long. As I drove to work yesterday I was praying like crazy that our process would go faster; that the Lord would take away the pain; that things would work out like the “perceived promise” that I had in my mind. 

Surprisingly by the time I got to work I felt significantly better (I say surprisingly because I really wasn’t praying for the right reasons or the right things). I believe, though, that the Holy Spirit was interceding on my behalf AND God was about to reveal a whole lot of truth to me. Once I got to work I actually had a chance to read the email that the adoption agency had sent (previously, my wife had just paraphrased it for me.) The information was the same, but now I saw God’s timing in it. The reason for the delay was the fact that the orphanage was filing for re-licensing with the government. You see, orphanages don’t renew their licenses every year; they renew them every two years. So, the possibility of us “just happening” to be at this specific point in the process at the exact time that they “happen” to have to renew their license, and the fact that our little boy just “happens” to be from this orphanage and not a different one is probably slim at best. Nothing is circumstantial with God.

He then spoke to my heart and reminded me that we are not in this process to bring honor or glory to ourselves, but rather to honor and glorify God. He reminded me of huge hurdles He had cleared for us in the past, and that everything was working according to His plan and His timing.

So why should we have to wait any longer? I do not know… BUT, I do know that whatever the reason is, it is to show the majesty and power of the one true God. It is to honor and glorify Him. And I can rest assured that when He is ready for our little boy to come home, it will be perfect! (Not by my measure of perfection, but rather His.)  

I choose to rest on His promises and not my “perceived promises;” the promise that my life is in the hands of the God of the universe. A promise that will not fail nor fade away. One that is not perceived, but rather guaranteed. I thank the Lord that He is in control and I choose to accept His perfect plan!

There are no hold ups in God’s timing. Instead, He intends that His promises will hold us up! It’s all a matter of perspective. What’s yours?

Pastor John

Look Long Term

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Connecting Points

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Today’s Topic: Look Long Term                                                        

Today’s Text:  Psalm 37:1 (ESV)
Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers!

Last night I went to bed in turmoil over news I had received. The Lord blessed me with sleep. He awakened me this morning at 4:45 and put my mind to work on this thought – “Why do the wicked prosper, and why do the righteous suffer?” At 5:30, having sufficiently trusted my Savior that His Holy Word would provide an answer, I was blessed with another hour of sleep. Here are the Scripture passages the Lord used to calm my spirit and build my faith so that I can encourage others to have a long-term outlook and not be dragged down by short-term realities. Please read them – digest them – for they are the truths that will sustain us.

Psalm 73:3-28 (ESV)
3   For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 4  For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek. 5  They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind. 6  Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment. 7  Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies. 8  They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression. 9  They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth. 10  Therefore his people turn back to them, and find no fault in them. 11  And they say, “How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?” 12  Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches. 13  All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. 14  For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning. 15  If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed the generation of your children. 16  But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, 17  until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end. 18  Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin. 19  How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors! 20  Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. 21  When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, 22  I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. 23  Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. 24  You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. 25   Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. 26   My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. 27  For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. 28  But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.

Psalm 37:1-29 (ESV)
1   Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! 2  For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. 3   Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. 4   Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. 5   Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. 6   He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. 7   Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices! 8   Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. 9   For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land. 10  In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. 11  But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace. 12  The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, 13  but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming. 14  The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose way is upright; 15  their sword shall enter their own heart, and their bows shall be broken. 16   Better is the little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked. 17  For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the LORD upholds the righteous. 18  The LORD knows the days of the blameless, and their heritage will remain forever; 19  they are not put to shame in evil times; in the days of famine they have abundance. 20  But the wicked will perish; the enemies of the LORD are like the glory of the pastures; they vanish—like smoke they vanish away. 21  The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives; 22  for those blessed by the LORD shall inherit the land, but those cursed by him shall be cut off. 23  The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way; 24   though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the LORD upholds his hand. 25  I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread. 26  He is ever lending generously, and his children become a blessing. 27   Turn away from evil and do good; so shall you dwell forever. 28  For the LORD loves justice; he will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off. 29  The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever.

O Lord, in your presence we find peace while our world falls apart around us. Today we choose to stand on your promises and be found faithful. We trust you. We delight in you. We commit our way to you. Bring forth your righteousness as I remain still before you and wait patiently for you to act.