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When God Waits: Making Sense of Divine Delays - Softcover

Daley, Jerome

 
9781578568956: When God Waits: Making Sense of Divine Delays
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1578568951 ISBN 13: 9781578568956
Verlag: PRH Christian Publishing, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

Is God keeping you waiting?

Does it feel like God has pushed the pause button on your life? If you’re frustrated by God’s apparent slowness, don’t assume that having to wait is a waste of time. God does some of his most important work in your life during these divine delays.

Many of the men and women of faith that we read about in the Bible had to endure long, difficult seasons of waiting before they could fulfill God’s destiny for their lives. And just like these biblical heroes, you can learn how to see what God is doing–and how he is changing your life–while you’re waiting.

Don’t miss out on the richness of this God-ordained lag between catching a vision for your calling and seeing God fulfill it. No matter how long you have to wait, you can be transformed as God prepares you to fulfill your divine calling.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jerome Daley pursues the passion of his life–intimacy with God and people–in partnership with his wife, Kellie. Through oneFlesh Ministries, Jerome and Kellie speak, write, and lead worship with a goal of sparking a consuming passion for God in the lives of God’s people. The author of Soul Space, Jerome earned a masters degree in New Testament from Columbia Biblical Seminary. Jerome, Kellie, and their three children live in Greensboro, North Carolina. For more information, visit www.onefleshministries.org

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Is God keeping you waiting?
Does it feel like God has pushed the pause button on your life? If you're frustrated by God's apparent slowness, don't assume that having to wait is a waste of time. God does some of his most important work in your life during these divine delays.
Many of the men and women of faith that we read about in the Bible had to endure long, difficult seasons of waiting before they could fulfill God's destiny for their lives. And just like these biblical heroes, you can learn how to see what God is doing-and how he is changing your life-while you're waiting.
Don't miss out on the richness of this God-ordained lag between catching a vision for your calling and seeing God fulfill it. No matter how long you have to wait, you can be transformed as God prepares you to fulfill your divine calling.

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Chapter One
Why All This Waiting?
Destiny and the Weakness of Waiting
Being fully present in the now
is perhaps the premiere skill
of the spiritual life.
–Brennan Manning
My face was getting tired of holding the smile in place.
Kellie and I were visiting friends at a North Carolina beach, and we found ourselves reciting, once again, the reasons why we believed God had brought us back to the Southeast from Colo-rado. The reasons weren’t complicated. We now had an opportunity to build a new ministry. To partner with a new church. To build community with new friends.
We had returned to North Carolina believing this was God’s clear leading, but the tale was starting to wear thin. As I spoke the words to our friends, I wondered whom I was trying to convince. I’d been buffing this vision with the cloth of conversation, trying to make the jewel shine as brightly as it had months earlier. Was I still trying to talk myself into this grandiose vision?
Kellie and I returned to our home state from a surreal sabbati-cal in Colorado Springs. We’d come down from the mountaintop, as it were, to bring our rediscovered souls, family, and God back into a newly commissioned assignment of ministry in Greensboro, North Carolina. It was time, we knew deep in our hearts, to release our revitalized being into a new kind of doing. With the insights we’d gained during the previous two years, we looked forward to a ministry free of the frenzied and fragmented strivings of years past. Instead, we were eager to enjoy the overflow of God’s lavish presence, drawing deeply from his unceasing goodness and living securely and satisfied in him alone.
We both knew God had given us fragments of purpose, direction we could trust, but still we felt subterranean tremors of uncertainty: can we do this? The luster of the dream was fading slightly as we confronted the dank reality of this new place: No ministry. No church. No ministry partners. And precious few friends.
It was inevitable, of course, that we would have to field the looming question time and again: “So, what are you doing now that you’re back from Colorado?” I realize that normal people have perfectly convincing, validating answers to this question. And then there was me. I vacillated between seeing myself as Spaceman Spiff, the intrepid explorer charting undiscovered territories, and a rather worse-for-wear jack-in-the-box on the island of misfit toys. Kellie and I were calling our new venture oneFlesh Ministries, and it was our burning desire to write, speak, and lead worship for the purpose of drawing people into greater intimacy with God and one another. But how would we fulfill this dream? How does a person step into destiny? I was tired of offering vague answers to the constant questions.
Our beach friends were gracious and supportive; they knew about launching out on a dream, having moved across the state not long before to pastor a church plant in this coastal community. But as I worked to maintain my confident smile while talking about the future, my soul was being rocked by waves of doubt and fear. Could I really afford to gamble my future on a dream?
And why wasn’t it coming together? My first book, Soul Space, wouldn’t be released for another six months. Our savings were gone, and our income was nil. Who am I kidding, telling our friends about this dream, this fantasy called oneFlesh Ministries? Kidding myself probably.
Our vision had been birthed during a year in the stunning foothills of the Rocky Mountains. We had remained a second year to write down the soulquaking discoveries we’d made, to turn those insights into a book. The waiting really began that second year, as we wrote and hoped, prayed and dreamed about what God was making us to be and do.
Since we had taken the plunge to return back east in the summer of 2002, the onus was suddenly on us to put up or shut up, to make good on all our talk about ramping into a new ministry or just bag it and get a “real job.” So far, nothing was happening. Why do transitions have to be so ambiguous? Couldn’t this just be simple and straightforward for a change? But often, it seems, transition demands that we relinquish the old before the new can take tangible form. If that’s true, then maybe this weightless, un-anchored in-betweenness is what transition is all about. Maybe, despite the discomfort, there is purpose in waiting. At least we hoped so.
The Weakness of Waiting
Waiting. I don’t like it…that much I have decided. Waiting feels so passive. So impotent. Waiting feels indecisive and irresponsible.
More to the point, waiting feels weak…and I definitely don’t like weak. However, our journey in God frequently involves the weakness of waiting. Can you relate to that? Does it feel as though you’re waiting for someone to hit the button and take your life off Pause? Does your destiny seem to hang out there, clearly visible but remaining just beyond your reach?
Months back I was pondering the rather staggering waiting season that my favorite biblical hero, David, endured. The prophet Samuel had already anointed David king of Israel, but he was nowhere near the throne. Not only was David’s reign over Israel not seeming to move toward reality, but all indications were just the opposite. King Saul was doing his best to kill the shepherd boy who posed such a threat merely because he was breathing. Gradually it began to dawn on me that David was not an aberration. With a mixture of fascination and dread, I began to review the stories of various biblical leaders–the movers and shakers we go to for inspiration. And guess what I found? Almost every man or woman whose story wound up in the Bible spent significant years doing one thing: waiting!
I’m not talking about waiting for the time they would be called to leadership. These people had already received God’s call, the dream was in place, the vision had been cast. But still they had to wait–after God had spoken a purpose or destiny for their lives. To all outward appearances, nothing was happening. Or in David’s case, his life had been a lot easier before God decided to name him the next king of Israel.
As much as I resist this idea, there appears to be a defining pattern in the plan of God: waiting necessarily precedes fulfillment. I’d love to be wrong on this, but I am becoming more convinced that waiting is inescapable. Waiting 101 is the prerequisite class for Intermediate Ministry, and often Waiting 201 comes before Advanced Serving. And I’m not talking about only those who are called to full-time Christian service. I’m talking about people called to full-time living! Living successfully in the Kingdom of God requires mastering the rare art of waiting well.


Dare We Still Dream?
Are you caught in that long season of waiting? Are you struggling to get into gear so you can pursue what you were made for? Be encouraged: time spent in the weakness of waiting is time that God uses to forge the soul of destiny. It is rare that God’s people stumble into seasons of anointing and purpose without first enduring a great deal of preparation. It’s more true and much more common that God’s people first do a lot of waiting. These are the people God raises up to instigate renewal and action.
God wants us to fully experience the weakness of waiting. And in the midst of this waiting, God offers a word of hope: “[Don’t] become weary in doing good, for at the proper time [you] will reap a harvest if [you] do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). Can you receive that promise into your current place in life? I encourage you to pause right now, close your eyes, and let that word of truth wash over you.
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Verlag
PRH Christian Publishing
Erscheinungsdatum
2005
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1578568951
ISBN 13 
9781578568956
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
192
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
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