Waiting...Waiting...Oh and More Waiting

"In the beginning you may see clearly what God's will is - the severance of a friendship, the breaking off of a business relationship, something you feel distinctly before God is His will for you to do, never do it on the impulse of that feeling. If you do, you will end in making difficulties that will take years of time to put right. Wait for God's time to bring it round and He will do it without any heartbreak or disappointment. When it is a question of the providential will of God, wait for God to move."
-Oswald Chambers

Waiting...oh how I hate it.

I often wonder what it was like to be Abraham. Abraham waited...something like 50 or 60 years before he had Issac. God told Abraham, "You're gonna be awesome. I'm gonna establish my people through you. If people don't like you, they're gonna be in big trouble. If they do like you, My blessings will be upon them." If I were Abraham I'd be like, "Wow....okay....if you say so..."

Because as exciting as it is when God says, "I'm gonna do something awesome in your life," I think we are often skeptical. We say, "Really God? I mean I know you love me and have a wonderful plan for my life and that would be the coolest thing ever...but why would you do that in my life?"

And here's the crazy thing. God says, "Because I love you. I love you enough to do something that is so cool and so awesome. I love you enough to show you my power in your life...not just my power in the world. I love you and want you to know that so I'm gonna do amazing things."

The other thing about Abraham's story that amazes me is that he waited...and waited...and waited...and waited some more. I am not a patient person (ask my roommate Tandiwhe). And yet....God does not think less of me because of it. God doesn't say, "Jana, really...buck up. Just wait for a little while longer." God says, "Jana...I know this sucks. I know you don't like it. But the waiting is part of the process. You will not be blown away unless you have waited on me. So I'm gonna do what's best for you and make you wait a little longer."

I pray for patience with myself, patience with the process, and patience to wait for God's plan.

Love

Love-maybe if we could create some tangible, concrete definition, we would understand it. But I think its mystery is what defines it.

Love is many things but really its just crazy. If some robotic or alien species discovered us, I think they would be confused. They would watch our romantic comedies and thinkg, "That human just ran all over the country for something you can't see or touch...all in hopes of having that feeling returned...you guys are nuts!!!!"

If you think about God's love...your brain continues to explode! God doesn't need us but he desires us. I'm pretty sure Jesus, Father, and Spirit did alright without us. But God WANTED us. He said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."

I think if we fully understood love it wouldn't be love. The irrationality and randomness is what makes it love. A man can say of his wife, "I love this, this, and this about you," but what love is can be difficult to define...

...unless you look at what God says.

I Corinthians 13-only one of the most famous passages of Scripture for Christians and non Christians alike. In 13 verses, Paul captures the essence of love.

Patient.

Kind.

Not insistent.

But I think my favorite part is this: "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."

Being loved means being known. We love someone in spite of their crap, skeletons, and shadows that follow them-in fact, we embrace these things.

I've been reading C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves and I've realized how complex love is. I don't love my roommates in the same way I love my brother. I don't love Kasi Svoboda the same way I love Andrea Lawrence. Love is meant to be felt, expressed, experienced in a multitude of ways.

And true love is God. True loves is that moment of worship, silence, or meditation when we feel His love for us. True love is known when we are fully known. True love is found when two people, a group of friends, or a family don't have to say, "You're messed up...but I accept and embrace that."

True love is found in moments of truth-those tiny glimpses of God's awesomeness...

Yes

Air-a basic necessity for human survival. But when the air becomes the whirling wind, its feel changes.

Power. Unparalleled power. The only thing that battles its might is the white water that crashes against the rocks. The gulls try to cut through the wind but end up hovering in torrents of turbulent air.

And here I stand. I stand in the smallness of my humanity and breathe in the vastness of my God. I stand, walk, and sit, praying, "O Great God, can you be small enough to know the deepest desires of my heart? Can you take my small humanity and work like the mightiest of the crashing waves?"

"Yes."