In your season of waiting, here are 5 ways to flourish (from my heart and home to yours).
God put the word hope on my heart for 2024.
I was wide-eyed and excited when He gave me that word on New Year’s Day, and thought ‘Surely this will be a good year!’ (2023 was hard, so I was optimistic for a better year).
Little did I know that as the months passed, He would teach me about hope in a way I didn’t expect – that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character and character hope (Romans 5). Hope isn’t always what we expect it to be, wide eyed, full of anticipation and dreams fulfilled. Hope is clinging to Jesus because He is always good regardless of our circumstances.
From my humble home and heart, I offer to you 5 ways to flourish in your seasons of waiting. However, I realised that flourishing is a strong and beautiful thing to feel, especially in a season of waiting. Perhaps it would be easier to say 5 Ways to Cope with Your Season of Waiting. My alternate title was ‘When Life is Difficult Difficult Lemon Difficult’ (Easy peasy lemon squeezy the saying goes, and sometimes life contradicts that). Let’s stick with flourishing because don’t we all desire a life that is flourishing and strong in God… truly, it is my hope that you feel understood and that your cup overflows in this season. Life is hard at times. Yet God is always faithful.
5 Ways to Flourish in Your Season of Waiting
Make your soul and surrounds spacious
Give your soul space for creativity to flow. Create time and space for our soul to sit in silence, reading God’s word, worshipping Him and delighting in Him. Far too often we fill our time with worthless pursuits that leave us emptier than before (*instagram, Facebook, YouTube are just a few examples). Being in a season of waiting is a good time to fulfil what God has give you to do in this season; maybe that looks like blessing others, re-decorating your home or enjoying simple moments with family members. Remember, our souls need space and time to breathe and refresh, too… we should not be so focused on the future that we forget the beauty of now.
Grieve and hope
Every human has grieved. Perhaps you have grieved the death of a loved one, an illness, broken relationships, a miscarriage or expectations your heart was set on that never came to pass. You felt your soul spinning while remaining in the in-between. Through difficult moments, your soul stretched. Sit in silence with a friend and ask for prayer, share from you heart and wait on God. He is with us. He has grieved, wept, and longed.
Ask God what He wants to teach you in this time: He is patient and kind. Ask God to be glorified in your weakness and in your waiting. Draw closer to Him. His yoke is easy and His burden light. God delights in us coming to Him with everything. He is with us in our suffering, close and comforting.
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Romans 5:3-53
Remember what God has done
Remember God’s faithfulness. Remember how He has carried you. Remember His love, His death, His resurrection. Remember and have faith. Exalt God by remembering what He has done and who He is. Jonathan David Helser shares, ‘Many times in scriptures when the fathers of the faith encountered God, they would build an altar. They built these altars so they would remember – remember their encounter with God, remember the place where everything changed. They took the time to gather stones and then stack them into a large pile so they wouldn’t forget how God met with them.’
Acknowledge that you are born to feel longing
Do we make the most of seasons of waiting? Pressed up against where we hope to be, but not ever attaining it. That pocket of yearning for more, is exactly what we are created for; we are crafted for eternity. And we can create, dance, sing, write, laugh and live so deeply in the waiting.
In seasons of waiting, God is often growing patience, trust, humility and character and hope in your heart.
“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.”
C.S. Lewis, Til We Have Faces
I am reminded: When I am first consumed with God, my desires and dreams fall into order. Stop rushing, slow down, surrender and seek God. Trust and obey Him in this season of waiting.
Continue to worship and delight in God
We are created to worship and to delight in God. When we are not consumed with Him, we become consumed with our own desires. Creating regular time to come before Him will renew your strength. You’ll feel joy rise up from within you; regardless of the outcome of your life, you can find strength and joy in Him.
In a season of waiting –
“Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.”
Isaiah 40:31
As I was praying the other day, asking God for His will and timing, He spoke to me ‘My timing is always good’. I wept, because I felt so comforted by how He is in control, and that His will is perfect and complete.
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