How long have you been in the waiting room?

My 2 littles are learning about PATIENCE in Sunday School.  The teachers have taught them a catchy little tune that Landry often sings.  Oh, how I struggle with PATIENCE.  I am a right now kind of girl.  Patience is one of those ongoing virtues that I am striving for, to say the least.  Sadly, my faith often waivers in the times of learning to wait.  I can honestly say, I do not doubt that God CAN or WILL, but have trouble with WHEN! 

"P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E
 you want it right now, but you can't have it right now,

you got to wait for it, wait for it!"
 (Landry & Isabella's Sunday School song)

Joseph waited 17 long years for his promise of leadership instead of imprisonment.  Sarah waited for decades for her promise of motherhood instead of barrenness.  The children of Israel wandered 40 years before settling in their Promised Land.  Forty years of sand, grumpiness, and mumbling when they had been promised a land flowing with milk and honey.  Last night, Clark brought it to my attention how all of their woes suddenly came to an abrupt end.  Moses died and Joshua became the new leader.  In the first chapter of Joshua, we read how the Lord renews Joshua's faith and gives him instructions.  Instruction that are good to heed regardless of what situation we are facing.

Be strong and of good courage...meditate day and night upon the book of the law and it will not depart from thee...be not afraid or dismayed...  (Joshua 1:1-9)

Good stuff!  THEN the Lord instructs him to tell the 2 million plus Israelites to pack their food and belongings that they will be leaving the wilderness, passing Jordan and heading to the promised land within THREE DAYS.  Forty years to three days.  When the Lord says it is time for the trial to be over, then it is over.  When it is His time for the blessing then it happens!  Go in and posses the land which the Lord has given!

My husband's words encouraged me, and proved to me yet again that the Lord knows right where we are.  My prayer devotion for today in my handy dandy devotional book encouraged me even further...

Lord, I know that doubts and confusion don't come from you.  On days when everything I know to be true is challenged - and I feel like I'm walking through a fog that won't lift - be my source of truth and light.  Bring me to complete trust in you.

Harriet Beecher Stowe said it this way, "When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you till it seems as if you couldn't hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that's just the place and time that the tide will turn."

The waiting room of patience is hard!  Like Joshua, be strong and of good courage, be not afraid or dismayed. Forty years might be in the process of becoming three days!