I’m listening Lord.
You said for your children to ask so I’ve been asking.
I know you haven’t forgotten me.
I’m confident you’re working on my behalf.
I’ve been walking this familiar stretch of road for miles heading in the same direction from the last time you spoke.
I’ve lost track of time along this silent path of my unanswered questions, bending my ear for course correction or direction with one word from you.
I’m waiting.
I’m watching while walking.
As rustling leaves from the breeze of my heart it echoes,
“I’m listening Lord.”
Many of us have lost the ability to wait, myself included on occasion.
We find ourselves stuck in the quagmire of trust what we don’t understand or see, caught up in the entanglements of our feelings instead of the safety net of God’s faithfulness.
God would have us leave the path of our unanswered questions and wade into the cool waters beside for refreshment and unearth the treasures of Him we have yet to discover.
God is enough for our lives.
He longs for us to…
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on our own understanding;
In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV
The answers to our unanswered questions are deeply rooted in Knowing God.
He is faithful.
He keeps his Word.
He honors his promises.
When roots go deep in God, we can trust Him beyond our understanding, anchoring a wavering faith against the gusts of unanswered questions.
Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes, its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.
Jeremiah 17:7-8 NIV
But one does grow weary on the path of unanswered questions at times.
Prolonged delays can tempt us to follow the dead-end road signs of our impatience, re-calculating the GPS coordinates of God’s best for us.
Always remember that God hasn’t forgotten us with His silence.
Prior to the birth of Jesus, God didn’t speak for four-hundred years.
His back wasn’t turned to them.
Quite the contrary.
In this dark night of eerie silence spanning four centuries, God was preparing the perfect time and place for the arrival of His beloved son.
In his silence, God was in great preparation.
I suppose though a Save the Date would have been appropriate for this grand entrance.
For our encouragement,
Brian Simmons wrote about God’s delays in his devotional…
I Hear His Whisper; Encounter God’s Heart for You
Brian Simmons
What you call delay, I call preparation. Many times I am at work behind the scenes, yet you cannot discern it. I am preparing others so that your destiny may be fulfilled, and I am preparing you even as I prepared Joseph for his season of promotion. Never judge My works by what your eyes see but by the promises I have made to you.
Hold tightly to those promises.
Instead of lamenting our unanswered questions, may we rest in His promise that the wait will be worth it.
May the overflow of our heart sustain us while we rejoice in the goodness of God.
Goodness of God
Written by Ed Cash, Ben Fielding, Jason Ingram,
Brian Johnson, Jenn Johnson, Bethel Music
All my life You have been faithful,
All my life you have been so so good.
With every breath that I am able
I will sing of the goodness of God.
Apples of Gold Encouragement 