Are You Tired of Waiting on God
By Drenda Keesee
Spring is here! Pastel colors, Easter dresses, and flowers shaking off their long winter’s nap and poking through the ground to say hello. I love spring; can you tell?
Spring is a great time for planting seeds, and not just seeds that go in the ground.
Galatians 6:7 (ESV) tells us, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”
If you have been in a season of waiting, and you have been making the right choices, trust that you will reap the harvest.
I know waiting is hard, but God is constantly preparing us for our promotions, even when we don’t know exactly what they are.
Whether you are waiting for a spouse, a work promotion, or healing in your family, when you feel yourself growing impatient and wondering, “Um, God, when exactly is this going to happen?” trust God, and stay submitted to the process!
Here’s why…
Seeds Grow in Their Time
Think about what would happen if you tried to coax a seed into growing faster or bigger…
More water?
More sunlight?
Singing?
Seeds grow at their own pace, in their appointed time, much like God’s plans unfold in His perfect time.
When we start rushing the waiting, it’s often a trust issue. You can’t give God part of your life; you have to hand over the whole thing.
Habakkuk 2:3 (NIV) tells us, “For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”
I think waiting on God’s plan to unfold is one of the hardest parts of being a Christian.
Waiting and trusting God means giving up control of the outcome, but it also means living a life of peace. As Matthew 6:27 (NIV) tells us, “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”
I used to be a champion worrier: late nights, insomnia, worrying about kids, finances, and more, but many years ago, I realized that worrying added nothing to my life, but it definitely took away from it. It stole my day-to-day peace!
Don’t let worry steal from you; instead, trust God with your whole life.
He will reveal His amazing plan, one revelation at a time.
Time to Prune
At first glance, pruning plants is a horrifying spectacle: just chopping away perfectly good growing limbs?
Why?
Pruning is one of the most important things you can do for the health of a plant. (Pssst, metaphor alert!)
1. Removing damaged parts.
Just like removing the damaged parts of a plant helps it to grow and be less susceptible to disease, God prunes us, sometimes uncomfortably so, to remove aspects of ourselves that are damaged, aspects that are a threat to the integrity of the larger structure.
2. New growth = long-term success.
When you thin out branches, more sunlight can get through. In other words, you might feel you are losing important parts, but God is trimming things that will allow more light and create a better, healthier structure, which will produce better long-term results.
In all He does, God is setting you up for long-term success.
John 15:1-2 (NIV) tell us, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”
I want you to experience all God has for you. Be encouraged, and know that God is always mentoring us, so He can advance us further in our assignment!
Listen in Now to Faith Life Church!
Drenda Keesee’s contagious zeal and humorous personal experiences help make her ministry of spiritual, emotional and relational wholeness one that will bless your life and spark a new fire in your spirit.
A wife of over 30 years and a mother of five children, Drenda has ministered at churches, seminars, and conferences, and through the mediums of television and radio, for more than 20 years.
Her books, The New Vintage Family, Better Than You Think, and She Gets It are available wherever books are sold. In these heartfelt books, Drenda shares her personal journey and the life lessons that have brought her to where she is today, as well as practical answers that all people need to live a joyful life.
Drenda and her husband Gary founded Faith Life Now, a ministry designed to spread the message of freedom in the areas of finances, faith, marriage, and family. Tune in for their weekly messages here. Faith Life Now hosts conferences worldwide, and sponsors both Fixing the Money Thing, which Drenda co-hosts with her husband Gary, and Drenda.
Through their own life experiences, the Keesees have found the principles from God’s Word to be powerful and effective. At one point, Drenda was a young, suicidal feminist with no hope of ever being “good enough” for her own standards of perfection. She never wanted the “inconvenience” of a husband or children, and she was on her own path to success. But the stress of trying to achieve perfection and perform for love left her broken and used. She had success, but it was nothing compared to the pain and loneliness it had also brought.
That’s when God got a hold of her heart. It was there—at her lowest point—that she found the One who accepted and loved her, faults and all. Since that transformation, Drenda has had a passion to reach women who find themselves where she once was.
She married Gary after attending college, and there she found herself in a personal boot camp of sorts. She says, “I cried and told God, ‘I can do anything but be a wife and mother.’” She committed to learning how to do it God’s way. Through the many years of raising their children and struggling to make ends meet, Drenda learned from their mistakes. “I didn’t know how to be a wife and mother, but God saved our marriage, taught us how to parent our children for success, showed us how to have financial success, and then irony of all ironies, He called us to ministry.” It’s truly because of these life experiences that Drenda can now share so many insightful principles for people who are now going through the same struggles.
