Season of Waiting

You wanna know what I’ve been Thinking Out Loud lately. Well here’s just a glimpse…

A message that has resonated with me from the Ruth bible study I’ve been doing is waiting.

Our world right now hates waiting. We hate waiting in line. We hate waiting for a text. We want things now. We want them immediately when we can get them. We want them on our timing. We want things at our convenience.

Lately and for a while all I can do is wait. If you’ve been following me for awhile you know I graduate in December and don’t know what I’m doing after.

I don’t know what town I’ll be in. I don’t know what job I will have. I don’t know where I will be teaching. I don’t know where I’ll be living.

The thing with waiting is that it’s a time of preparation. While I may be starting to struggle a bit (mentally) about what I’ll be doing after graduation since it’s now October, this time of waiting is preparing me for whatever is next.

Think about it. What if I did know where I was going next? I would be so focused on preparing for that next destination that I wouldn’t be able to fully focus on where I am now. Trust me there is plenty of learning to be done for right now too.

So that’s what I’m able to do now. I can focus on taking in what I’m experiencing while student teaching this semester. I have the rest of my life to teach on my own. Of course I’ll start really getting busy this month with taking steps to finding a job and hopefully starting the hiring process. However, until I get that degree in my hand in December I’m not going anywhere.

Now let me reel it back to connect with the story of Ruth without telling you the whole story. Ruth went through a time of waiting. She had found something to hope in, but now had to wait to see how things would work out. Here are some words from that study:

“Embrace the waiting, the preparing, the anointing, and the expectancy in life. God works not only through life-changing days, but also through periods of preparation.”

So I’m not sitting here worrying away about the future because it is a waste of time and energy. Yes, daily I’ll think about it and dream about it, but it hasn’t become something that is burdening me. I’ve let go of my tight grip of wanting to control the direction of my life, but that takes effort. I have to choose to surrender my desire to have a plan to God. I have to relinquish that want to control because that allows me more freedom.

How does that allow me more freedom you ask? Let me put it this way: I’ve let go of the reigns to the horse that I can’t control. I could kick and spur. I could click my tongue. I could pull those reigns to the right or to the left with all my might, but that horse still might not go in the direction that I want it to. There is freedom to be found when you let go of the reigns.

Because right now my only prayer can me “make me” “teach me” and “lead me” and I’ll let God lead me through whatever series of obstacles is lining up for me. So in this season of waiting I’ll keep focusing on preparing.

Show me the right path, O Lord; point out the road for me to follow. Lead me by your truth and teach me for you are the God who saves me. All day long I put my hope in you. Psalm 25:4-5

Are you in a season of waiting right now? Or have you been in the past? How did you handle it?