Hello dear friends, warm greetings from the shores of Hawaii.
Last time we talked about Abiding in His presence and some few steps on how to Abide.
Since then, the LORD has been speaking and teaching me so much more through this same topic. It’s amazing to experience all the new things the Lord is teaching me and my heart’s cry and desire is ”LORD, more”.
One of the many areas God has been speaking to me during these past weeks is on ABIDING THROUGH WAITING.

Let’s explore this area together:
Friends, waiting is the most difficult thing to do in every human life.
Just the idea about waiting, not even the act, causes a lot of people to go through a sudden shock.
Think about someone studying a career in the University, or a person that receives news about people getting fired in their company, a young lady in her late twenties still unmarried or a young man whatever the case may be. These group of people which include everyone in society are most afraid of one principal thing in their lives; WAITING.
The problem most times is not just to wait, but for how long should I wait for the answers that I really feel that I need. This also apply in the case of healing in times of sickness in your body, you visit one hospital after another and you had someone or a group of believers prayed over you, yet you feel just a little better. Your question is either; How long GOD or Why me. In some cases, you maybe feeling already rejected by God.
Beside this, everyone that comes around you, seems to show more care and concern for your health than God does, you will think in your heart.
Nobody enjoys staying at home and doing nothing for a couple of years after finishing your studies in a great career, or getting fired from your company to start all over again searching for a new job. You always wants to be certain of what you will be doing tomorrow even if it doesn’t sound good to other people, but at least, you have something in mind to do.
This is how we live our lives today and the society has helped to make it now more compulsory through the economic system. You can’t just sit in your house and wait for the Government to give feeding money at the end of the month.
Surprisingly, we approach God with this same mind set. One of the amazing places in the Bible that I am challenged with in the area of waiting is in Leviticus 25:1-7. The Sabbath year. God specifically asks the Israelites to work for six years, but on the seventh year, the land is to observe a Sabbath. What this means by implication is no work for 12 months, but you can eat and you can go on a long holiday.
When you look at this passage, you will realize that God was at this time establishing principles of a healthy living standard for the people of Israel and building trust and dependability on Him as their one and only source of provision, protection, and their value was to be placed on God alone.
With this mindset, the people will not find their security and selfworth in what they do, but in who they are in light of who their God IS.
Dear friends, I am learning to discover that one of the very key roots of our fear of Waiting is our Selfworth. What will people think of me, if I do not have this or do things in this way. And because we identify how important we are from what we do in life, Waiting on God becomes something strange in our mindset. It becomes strange to think that God will be interested in some details about our lives and future.
As I write now, I have just been reminded of what Jesus did to me few days ago, to be precise, on Friday morning. I had been having some trouble with my stomach digesting the meals here because of lack of oil like we eat oil in Africa and on this morning during my time alone with Jesus, He clearly told me to get a specific fruit and eat. I did as He directed me, and the result of my system was just amazing. I thought to myself, how faithful God is and how Loving that He gets involved in our every day life and desires to be part of our little and detail day to day life.
Furthermore, Saul in our scripture for today, said he was afraid to lose the people. This can also be translated as “I DID NOT WANT TO LOOK STUPID IN THE EYES OF EVERYONE SAYING I’M WAITING ON GOD, OR TO SAY GOD ASKS ME NOT TO DO THIS AND I WANT TO OBEY THAT.
When God asks us to wait, one thing you can be assured of is that God will never waste your life.
Finally, In 1 Samuel 1:3-28. We can learn from the life of Hannah that it’s not how long you have waited on God, but continuous waiting is the access key to what God has in store for our future.
BENEFITS OF WAITING:
Waiting paralyzes you and produces courage and confidence to entrust your future into the hands of God.
Waiting develops maturity.
When you learn how to wait, you learn to be patient with yourself and other people.
Waiting helps you deal with pride and low-self esteem.
Waiting helps you re-define your values for life and the decisions you are making.
2 Samuel 2:1+. Through the many years that David waited to be finally declared as King of Israel, he learnt that leading people requires more than the strength to fight Goliath. He needed God to survive therefore he needed God to be a leader over Israel.

If you are in a time of waiting in your life now, remember Jesus will not waste if you trust in Him.
DO NOT GIVE UP. PRESS ON, GOD WILL NOT FAIL YOU.
Please send your prayer request and comment to ndecheckj@yahoo.com
It’s always a delight to spend time praying for you.
Thanks to those of you who responded last time. I will try to continue this monthly due to my tight School schedule.
I wish you God’s blessings and peace.
Jackson.