Please Wait!

My friend from Japan sent us some gifts last week — yummy truffles for me and King, a clay play set for Noelle, and a scrunchie-maker for Danae. The girls were thrilled with their new toys. They hurried eating their breakfast so they could play, despite our request to wait.

To make the long story short, Danae couldn’t wait. Instructions were in Japanese, but she went ahead and tried to make it work. She managed to get the big lump of stretchy yarn stuck in the weaving contraption! We just heard her groaning, asking for scissors. I tried to help, but couldn’t. King stepped in and was the one able to fix it for her.

It just reminded me of how we are. We’re in a new, exciting season, and we can’t wait to enjoy it. But we realize we’re on unknown territory. We don’t know what to do. We want help, but we’re not patient enough to wait for it to arrive. Sometimes, we don’t seek help at all. Itching to do something, we go ahead blindly, winging it, hoping the results are favorable. More often than not, however, they don’t go so well. Instead of being able to enjoy it the soonest, it takes longer because we create problems that we need to troubleshoot first. And sometimes, that’s the only time we actually seek help.

God wants us to enjoy our seasons. But if we don’t seek His will first, we get distracted and derailed. We end up doing things that we’re not supposed to do — maybe good things, but things that waste our time, energy, and resources. Worse, we end up doing the wrong things. If we go ahead of Him instead of wait on Him, we get delayed even more. We make unnecessary mistakes. We dig holes for ourselves that are difficult and take time to get out of. We get lost. We end up needing to go back to square one, when square one should have been to seek God first.

AND YET, when we do get ourselves in trouble, God is always more than willing and available to step in and save us. When we ask for His help at the very last minute, as an afterthought, He is still gracious to give us what we need. He gives us hope, countless chances to go back to Him. And along with those chances, He equips us with lessons, realizations, and hopefully, if we listen and truly learn, wisdom.

There are God-appointed people who can help us with some things, but there are just some things that ONLY the Father can do for us. 🙂

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:33

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6

God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1

Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me. Psalm 54:4