The Miracle of Waiting Faithfully
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:22.960 | Jackie Hill Perry, that's off her new album Crescendo, and it's very good. Worth checking
00:00:27.760 | out. Jackie, thank you for being with us again. On Friday, we talked about how hard it is to
00:00:32.640 | claim to God when life is easy. It was really good and challenging, and that's why I love
00:00:37.680 | following you on Twitter and Instagram. Here's another tweet that I think is really perceptive,
00:00:41.920 | and I want you to elaborate on what you mean by it. Quote, "Sometimes the miracle isn't in our
00:00:48.160 | prayer being answered, but in your faith being grown as you wait." So good. Explain to us,
00:00:56.320 | what is God doing in us, in our waiting? I think as a believer, one thing that I've
00:01:03.040 | consistently had difficulty with is the whole concept and idea of perseverance.
00:01:08.240 | And I think God is after that when we are praying for things that we don't seem to be getting.
00:01:14.160 | I got encouragement for that in particular when I was reading 1 Samuel 1, when it came to the story
00:01:19.120 | of Hannah and how she wanted a son or a child, and she wanted a child for a really, really long
00:01:24.800 | time. And she kept praying as far as we know. But then when she went to the temple and she finally
00:01:30.400 | prayed to God and she let out her vexation to the Lord, it said that she walked away from
00:01:37.120 | the temple and her face was no longer sad. And that was always really intriguing to me,
00:01:42.160 | is that somehow when she prayed that prayer in particular and asked God to give her a son,
00:01:48.960 | the interesting thing is that in the prayer, she said that, "Lord, I will give the son back to you."
00:01:54.000 | And I think a lot of times we are praying for things that we have no intention on giving back
00:01:58.320 | to God in the first place. And so I wonder if her heart had changed in such a way where everything
00:02:04.480 | that she was going to get from God and everything that she wanted to get from God, she only wanted
00:02:08.640 | it for His glory. And I think that part is what changed her heart so that she was able to walk
00:02:14.000 | away and no longer be sad by what seemed to be an unanswered prayer before the prayer was even
00:02:18.480 | answered. And so for me, my heart has been, "Man, what is God trying to do in me through my waiting?
00:02:24.800 | Is He trying to help me see Him more? Is He trying to help me understand that I don't need what I
00:02:30.000 | think I need? Is He trying to teach me about contentment and the things that I do have?" I
00:02:35.600 | think God is always doing a variety of things in secret that we just really don't realize or don't
00:02:41.520 | see. And so I think the faith, I think the miraculous thing is that faith is not natural to me.
00:02:47.120 | Sin is, rebellion is, unbelief is. So the miraculous thing is that God would somehow use my waiting
00:02:54.320 | as a means to grow my faith so that I could see Jesus and want Jesus and crave Jesus. Because
00:02:59.920 | ultimately we know that perseverance produces character and character produces hope. And God
00:03:05.440 | just wants us to have hope in Him. He wants us to get to the end where we will receive the crown of
00:03:10.960 | life and you don't get there unless you persevere. And so God is doing a mighty thing in us when He
00:03:15.920 | just doesn't give us everything we want when we want it.
00:03:18.640 | I suppose we're all waiting for something. I mean, I feel like when I'm being called to wait
00:03:25.040 | for an answer to prayer, I feel like I'm being singled out. Like, why me? Why do I have to wait?
00:03:30.320 | But the reality is, as you read the Bible and you're picking this up, waiting is part of the
00:03:36.000 | gig for all of God's people. For sure. All throughout Scripture. I mean, Israel,
00:03:40.560 | they were crying out to God for deliverance for a long time, but He had promised to do so and He
00:03:45.040 | did it. Us, we're waiting for the return of Jesus. We are all in a sense waiting for something,
00:03:51.840 | but everything God said He will do, He will do. And so in the meantime, as we wait, we keep
00:03:57.920 | trusting, we keep believing, we keep reading Scripture to remind ourselves what God has said.
00:04:02.000 | We keep surrounding ourselves with other believers who can stir us, who can remind us of the truth
00:04:07.440 | when we don't want to believe it. We keep praying, we keep believing. And in that, that's where
00:04:12.400 | godliness comes out of, if you think about it, because you're trying hard to hold on. And in
00:04:18.720 | holding on, God is doing all that He has to do to keep us to Himself.
00:04:22.960 | That's good perspective, Jackie. Thank you. This is such a huge topic over, you know,
00:04:27.120 | what is God doing in us and our waiting? We just recently covered this specifically,
00:04:31.280 | what do we do when our prayers are met with a firm no from God? We talked about that a couple
00:04:35.440 | of weeks back with Pastor John in episode 1226, which you can find at our online home at
00:04:39.920 | desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. There you can explore all 1,250 or so of our episodes, scan
00:04:46.960 | a list of our most popular ones, browse down to episode 1226, or read full transcripts, even send
00:04:52.880 | us a question of your own. And of course, to get new episodes delivered to you three times per
00:04:56.560 | week, you can subscribe to the Ask Pastor John podcast in your favorite podcast app.
00:05:01.040 | Well, the battle for our morning devotions is a massive war for many of us. Our attention
00:05:07.760 | is under attack for vain things and for personal approval and desires that lure us online right as
00:05:15.600 | we wake up. So how do we preserve our mornings? That's next time with Jackie Hill Perry. I'm Tony
00:05:20.800 | Reinke. We'll see you then on Wednesday.
00:05:22.880 | [END]
00:05:23.920 | you
00:05:24.000 | [MUSIC]