Lively With Him

"He suffered, died, and was buried. 
On the third day, He rose again, in fulfillment of the scriptures."

I hope your celebration of the Risen Lord continues to bring peace to you and those around you.

Lately, I've been hearing a lot about confidence in God. There were a number of verses mentioned throughout the past couple of weeks about trusting, sacrificing, and living differently in this world as a consequence of Jesus conquering death.

We are told that we will experience troubles in this life. 

We are also told that we should wait for God. 

I have been thinking a great deal about this 'waiting' thing.

Life is filled with waiting. We wait for stop lights and for the weekends. We wait for payday and for deliveries. We wait for sunshine, and we wait for rain. 

I know how to wait.

I know I hate waiting.

But I'm hearing that waiting for God is a bit different. I think that just maybe, I do not know exactly how I am to be waiting for Him.

• Those frustrations?  Please, God.  Take them away.
• Those moments of pain? Please, God. Take them away.
• The tiredness, the lack of energy, the impatience, and the conflicts with others?  Please, God. Take them away.
• The racial hostility, the wars, the political strife, the 'us vs. them', the 'me first', and the oppression of others? Please, God. Take this discord away.

As the world's troubles become unbearable, it is easy for me to curl up in a ball, say the "take this away" prayer, and then wait on God. But I am thinking that is not what I am supposed to do.  

Like most things, the common and worldly definitions change when we're thinking about this Kingdom-of-God place. 

Two things have made me reconsider my time of waiting.

Number 1.

"I remain confident of this:
    I will see the goodness of the LORD
    in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD;
    be strong and take heart
    and wait for the LORD."  Psalm 27:13-14

I see two lines here. The first says, "...in the land of the living." The second mentions, "...be strong".

These verses seem to indicate that waiting for God is not passive. It seems to say that being strong in the land of the living is how we should wait. It proposes that waiting is on par with awareness so that if I seek God in the tiniest of everyday things, I will be in a better position to hear Him when He is letting me know what is needed from me.

I think I had learned this some time ago and then, laziness made me forget.  In times when things are going sideways, don't curl up in a ball! Be strong. Get up and do - volunteer! 

In times when the world is collapsing all around me and when I'm feeling exhausted with the hopelessness of it all, don't just 'wish a prayer.' Stand up! Do something for someone else, even if it's insignificant because the insignificance is only in MY mind, not the mind of someone else.

Number 2.

Normal Lear's memoirs were penned with the title, "Even this I get to experience." 

This book is now in my Amazon Cart. 

"In my ninety-plus years I’ve lived a multitude of lives. In the course of all these lives, I had a front-row seat at the birth of television; wrote, produced, created, or developed more than a hundred shows; had nine on the air at the same time; founded the 300,000-member liberal advocacy group People For the American Way; was labeled the “no. 1 enemy of the American family” by Jerry Falwell; made it onto Richard Nixon’s “Enemies List”; was presented with the National Medal of the Arts by President Clinton; purchased an original copy of the Declaration of Independence and toured it for ten years in all fifty states; blew a fortune in a series of bad investments in failing businesses; and reached a point where I was informed we might even have to sell our home. Having heard that we’d fallen into such dire straits, my son-in-law phoned me and asked how I was feeling. My answer was, “Terrible, of course,” but then I added, “but I must be crazy, because despite all that’s happened, I keep hearing this inner voice saying, ‘Even this I get to experience.’”    Norman Lear.