I.
Knowing that Jesus has called me to pour out myself, I is a word that I must intentionally work out of my vocabulary. The tension is that I is who Is most known to me. I is all I’ve known since before I understood that knowledge existed. My pains, past experiences, pleasures, plans…they are all stored within me. All of these things make up the man known as me. So how am I to pour me out of me? The reality: once I have surrendered the “I” Christ safely places all of these things within Him. He redeems my ego. He heals my pain. He uses my past to work for His glory and the healing of others. He makes my pleasures into those that honor Him. He gives me a future and plans to fulfill it. In short, I realize that Jesus doesn’t want me to neglect myself, ignore myself, or even think not of myself, but to fully submit myself. (Period). He will continue to provide life and hope for me, but I must be found securely within H”i”m.
I wait.
Patience is a virtue. Right? After all God is the supreme example of patience. He fully operates from a place of eternal perspective, having the entirety of the future in mind when acting in our present. But what does that mean for me. I wait. Sometimes in this microwave culture, of which I am a product, things seem as though failures if they do not come to fruition in almost an immediate fashion. Praying for days with no response seems foreign to many of us younger believers. Ok that phrase is my way of shaping my perception. I feel old but in the faith am still young. It’s all perspective right? When it comes to perspective we are expecting answers now. And even now…or now! I remember days as a youth when my Grandma would sick rockin and swaying on the couch singing and praying on behalf of her children and grandchildren. Many of those prayers might have appeared unanswered, until her eldest grandson came to Christ, then I came to Christ, her youngest granddaughter entered the ministry…the list goes on. I know that I know that my Grandmother, patient in prayer for years, had embraced the idea of the “I wait.” She was a product of an oven culture and persistence was the norm, as opposed to immediacy, always preaching on delayed gratification. So she waited. Now I must learn that as well. So “I wait.”
I wait on.
While we wait there is a posture to be had. It, however, is different than the picture I painted of my G-ma. It is one of action, not to say she was inactive. She was the hardest working woman I ever knew. But to be clearly this posture is a waiting on…. When we wait on, we serve. We serve with a mindset of this being what Jesus did. This being what Jesus came to do. He came to save and to serve. He washed feet, he healed, he resurrected, he provided miracle after miracle. Does this sound like simply waiting? No, Jesus waited on. He rolled up His sleeves and got to work, knowing that the power of heaven would be born forth during his activity. I wait patiently for the salvation and healing of loved ones, answers, provision, etc, but I will wait with hands of eager service, not reluctant obedience. So. I wait on.
I wait on JESUS.
My waiting is not in vain. Jesus is my salvation, my hope, my rock. Jesus has promised provision. Jesus has promised healing. Jesus has promised a future. Jesus is my everything. But what it truly means to wait on Jesus is to “wait on” Jesus. My service during my patient days is devoted to Him, his glory, his name being spread throughout the land, his testimony of grace in my life being shared, his people being loved… I don’t just wait as though waiting for rain in a drought. I wait as one who plants, tills, fertilizes, waters, protects, and expects the fruit that is promised. I wait on Jesus.
Share this with a friend today who you know is also in the tension of these four words.
