Trust in God in the midst of waiting

Today I would like to talk to you about a courageous faith, a faith with courage, with strength. I am going to focus on this passage from Isaiah, chapter 55, verses from 8 to 9. A passage that many of us know says:

"...For my thoughts are not your thoughts nor my ways your ways, says the Lord, as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts..."

That same text also appears in Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 11 and what the word of God adds in that text is that God's thoughts are to give us an end full of peace, an end full of good. And there we have to maintain our certainty.

And today connecting this theme of how we can continue trusting in God, I wanted to meditate on how to trust God in the midst of our waiting, whatever it is that you are waiting for, that you can keep trusting in God. All of us in some way or another, my brothers, are waiting for something. If you are not waiting for something to happen in your life, well, you are living without hope. The one who expects something, the one who maintains his hope that something is going to happen, that something is going to happen, that is something that drives us, it is like gasoline that keeps us getting up day after day to continue forward.

But many times in that wait wonderful things happen and I leave with the hymn, with the chorus. Or that many times our life of faith is approved. And I would like to share some things with you, some of these things I have come across in meditations, texts, that people have sent me, words that they have shared with me or myself in meditations that I have done. And here I want to share them with you.

One thing I would like to point out is that there are times when God delays answering a prayer so that we can develop spiritual qualities. And that is one of the most difficult lessons that we sometimes have to learn. Understanding that many times God puts up with the answer to a prayer because he wants to develop something in us: perseverance, confidence, patience, subjection, very full words each of these, that perhaps we say them sometimes very quickly, but that they are words that they have such a great weight that we often look at them very lightly and do not stop to truly meditate on what these words mean and the power and impact they have on our lives.

Perseverance, confidence, patience, subjection. Why do I mention these 4 specific words? I believe that these qualities come to us only, only when we patiently wait and trust in God's timing, when we patiently wait and trust in God's timing. Perseverance, all of us can understand, has to do with that long-term perspective. The opposite of perseverance is what? Surrender. And it is something that many times we easily choose this route, when we see that things are not happening as one wants, our patience goes very quickly, our trust, be it in God or in any other person, goes very quickly and what What we tend to do is give up and eliminate ourselves, as they say, from the race.

But there is something that God wants to do in the midst of all that waiting. God is not intimidated, let me put it that way, when we come before him with childish demands, by us wanting instant gratification. As we have well heard, we cannot twist God's arm when we come before him complaining, as if we were little children, ah, you, why don't you answer me, you are not listening to me, you are not paying attention to me. And we behave as if we were children before God.

And I understand that the Bible itself says that we have to be like children to enter the Kingdom of heaven, but it does not mean that our behavior with God is going to be childish. But we have to be understood also before him in how we relate to him. There are times when we come screaming and kicking our feet in front of God and it is as if God is shaking his head, look, shout and kick all you want, but right now I am not going to grant you what you are asking of me.

To you who are fathers and mothers, and at some point perhaps you had to do this with your son or daughter. They come in front of you crying, screaming, kicking their feet and if you are not firm, then what you are going to have is a boy, a spoiled girl because she does not have the discipline, the character to be able to endure when you had to refrain from giving her something that that son, that daughter was asking him.

And so is God. We come crying, yelling, kicking our feet in front of God and God stays there, look, cry all you want, kick all you want, but right now I understand that it's me granting you what you're asking of me, no It's the moment. And we, when we were children, maybe we would get mad, we would cross our arms and go to a corner to cry, cry, it's okay, and after a while God would come and pass his hand over us calmly and one like, oh, yes I will you give? No, no, don't worry, I'm just consoling you so you know I'm with you, but it's not like I'm going to give you what you're asking for yet. I'm just letting you know that I love you, that I'm with you, but you have to keep waiting.

We cannot pretend that we know more than God about when a prayer has to be answered. We cannot tell him, Lord, this is the moment, now is that... that answer has to come now, look what is happening, now is the moment. And God is there like, that's what you believe, but your thoughts are not mine. And what you are seeing is not what I am seeing.

Now, my brothers, I also want to emphasize this. God's delays are not necessarily a denial. He has his reasons why not yet. God has his reasons why he says no yet. because? What would be some of the delays behind that wait?

And look, we may never fully understand why or the reasons why one has to wait. Even what I told you previously, that may sound like something generic, oh yes, well, waiting helps you develop patience, and all those other things that I mentioned, but even the reasons that God has behind all that process, we we will never be able to understand them.

And that should not surprise us because God is the creator and we are the creatures. God knows more than us. On the one hand, what God is doing is testing our faith. Our faith in him, our faith in the promises that he has given us and not necessarily in the promises that a man, a pastor, or a woman has imparted to us. Ah, God has this for you. If not, it is rather to believe him.

There are promises, there are words that God has given to each and every one of us. At some point or another in our lives there is a word that God has imparted and that word did not necessarily have to have come from here, from the altar, to say that it had any validity. It could have been a moment where you were in your house, at your dining room table and you were having a coffee and you were reading the Scripture and suddenly, a verse that you were reading stands out and echoes in your mind, in your spirit and in your heart, that you say, wow, Lord, you have spoken to me in this moment.

And one can hold on to that word, that simple and simple moment, there was not much hubbub, maybe you had a radio turned on very low, but you were totally focused on reading, and at that moment God imparted something on his heart and one clings to that promise.

On the one hand, we cannot proceed as if God were a candy machine, I don't know what vending machines there are sometimes, I don't know if it has happened to you that you throw in the money and when it hits you and the spiral begins to move, which remains stuck there just before falling, and one savoring that snikers that one wants to eat, and he hanging there, he got caught in a corner and one begins... to kick him, and he moves them and swings them and someone passes by and one stays calm. And when the person leaves you come back... pa, pa, pa...

How many of us have times treated God like this, as if he were a vending machine? We put the money in it and God, I want this. And you see how the thing is moving, it is moving in a spiral and what you are waiting for is going to fall but… no, God, give me!!

We cannot deal with God as if he were just satisfying our every whim. I believe that the trials of life always bring some gain, my brothers, even through losses. And this, I know that this is hard to share, my brothers, because I know that many people here that I face, I know that they are still processing different losses that they have experienced in their lives. But for some mysterious reason that we will never be able to understand, it is through moments like these where God brings spiritual gains into our lives, where God in one way or another increases that sense of faith, hope, joy, and patience. , of love, tolerance and sometimes even understanding of life situations that we did not have before.

It happens to us as it happened to Job, by hearsay I had heard you more now my eyes see you. In other words, I knew you in a way, what people told me about you, what I heard the pastors preach, what I heard people pray, and I learned from that and knew you in a way, but after having experienced these situations in my life, now, I know you in a totally different way, that is something almost secondary, tertiary, because now I am seeing you and I am getting to know you in a totally new way.

But if it hadn't been for those hard and difficult moments and sometimes even embarrassing and frustrating, then one would not have been able to have that kind of gain that only God can bring. Gains that arise from pain, hurt, struggle, confusion, failure, all of these are testing our faith.

And it is not that God is a masochist, but it is that God literally wants it, my brothers, I have heard many times that preachers say, God cannot test you because you are his son, you are his daughter, he loves you and... no, but look, God tests one. God tests one. God tests you, God is testing me right now. I can say it, I am speaking this word to you and something in me wants to sit down and receive it myself, and not necessarily share it. But God tests us, my brothers.

And in the midst of that wait, my brothers, you have to be careful with distractions that may arrive. And distractions can be seen in different ways. Distractions that come from within, as well as distractions that come from without, distractions that are within your control or distractions that are outside of your control. These are things with which one has to be very careful.

If I easily get carried away by distractions, then I lose focus on what God wants to do. And I easily end up doing something I'm not supposed to do or that God doesn't expect me to do. Or I end up making decisions that are not more or less in line with what God wants. And these are things that you, I, have to be careful with. Distractions in your life can come in many forms. Who knows if even for some of you, the people you would least want, but they are there, they are in your own house, and they are things that are taking you out of focus. And you have to deal with it.

But that's where the point of all this is, that despite those distractions, we have to keep one thing in mind, trust God. Put your trust in God and not in anything else. The important thing is to maintain our trust in him. Look how Psalm 37 says, perhaps many of you know, verses 3,4, 5 and 6, it says:

"...Trust in the Lord and do what is good and you will dwell in the land and feed on the truth..."

Look how it says in the first verse, trust in Jehovah and do good. Notice that there are times that in the midst of that confusion, in the midst of that waiting, in the midst of all those frustrations, the tendency is to act not against nature but against what God expects us to do. And we have to hold on to the Lord and intentionally seek to do good in the midst of all things. Even if your mind betrays you, even if your emotions are a bit confused, one has to seek to do what is right, seek to do good at all times. Maybe one side of your head is telling you, screw this up, but the other side in your spirit and in your heart is telling you, no, this is what God is expecting of you and this is how you have to do it.

You have to trust God that as you behave in this way, that you proceed in this way, looking for the good, looking for love between brothers, sisters, looking for that sense of brotherhood to continue to strengthen and not for us to Let's keep dividing and talking about each other. If you seek to proceed and do good, trusting in God, what does it say? You will dwell on the earth and you will feed on the truth.

Look at this other piece of advice, in those times of waiting, even if it is difficult to delight yourself in God, delight yourself in him. Delight yourself in Jehovah and sooner or later, at one time or another, he will give you the desires of your heart.

In the midst of that confusion, in the midst of that pain, in the midst of that struggle, verse 5 has one of the best advice we can have:

"... Commit your way to the Lord and trust in him..."

Brothers, it sounds very simple, it sounds very nice to say it, to live it, there are another 20, without a doubt. Has passed. But we must trust him and commend our cause to the Lord.

Look at this other proverb, Proverbs, chapter 3, very similar, verses 5 to 8 says:

“…Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him…”

Check this out, let me give you a contextual example, if you will. We pastors are not perfect human beings, I know that many times when one does not act as people would like and when one does not operate according to the standard that people have of one, something is released. And it's not that it bothers me that they speak ill of me, but I believe that a son, a daughter of God who understands, even in part, the purposes, the designs of God, should understand that when there is someone doing that, one You have to recognize God in the midst of that situation, and the first thing you have to ask yourself, is God here in this? Don't answer me. I'm asking a rhetorical question to get you guys to think about it. I mean, is God in this? If I am like who says, disfiguring the testimony of a person, is God in that? I have to acknowledge God in all my ways and if that comment they are saying about xy person is going to confuse my relationship with that person, I have to acknowledge God in that walk and ask God to straighten the path for me to understand well how to proceed.

We cannot allow, my brothers, that something as harmful as a comment between you and me, nobody will find out, this is between you and me, but that pastor Omar, who does not respond to my call, two weeks, three weeks go by , and he doesn't answer my call… sorry! Guilty. Sorry. If at any time I have failed him in that way. Let's recognize God, my brothers, in everything we do, in everything that happens around us. Do not think wise in your own opinion. I keep reading:

“…Fear the Lord and depart from evil…”

Get away from it. If you work at Target and someone comes in, a colleague, and starts to tell you, that manager, that if he treats us badly and what do I know... do you have a problem with the manager? Go and talk to him. I have no problem with the manager. I'm telling you for a reason, I saw you in the Target uniform so… I took you as an example. I've been a witness of that.

Why am I saying all these things, my brothers? Verse 8 says:

“…Because it will be medicine for your body and refreshment for your bones…”

I tell you, there are things so beautiful that God is even willing to give us medicine to help us along the way and restore us so that we can move on. God wants us to have a courageous, resilient, strong, mature faith. That is what God wants us to have.

To have such a faith we have to trust God even when things don't seem to be going our way. And what I just told you I told you with my back teeth. We have to trust God even when things don't go the way we want. You have to trust God.

As Jeremiah 29 says, chapter 11.

“…God has our best interest in mind…”

God has your best interest in mind. Things will happen in life that are very hard, very ugly, very difficult, things that will surprise you, things that you will think are unfair, as well as beautiful things, beautiful things, things that will bring light to your path. , light to your mind, which will bring you a new sense of joy, satisfaction and in all those things, God is never absent. God is always there, looking out for your interests, looking out for the interests of his people, of his church, so that his plans are carried out in the midst of each and every one of us.

Lord, thank you once again for your word. Thank you for the truth that is contained in it, thank you for the strength, thank you for the encouragement, thank you for the correction we find in your word, Lord. And Lord, as I share this word, my wish is that each one of my brothers and sisters can find in you the strength they need, that they can find in you the encouragement, the direction that only you can give. You know very well the point in the journey in which we find ourselves, in our journey of faith, our walk with you, and you know very well right now the heart of each one of my brothers and sisters, and I ask you, Lord Jesus , that if there is someone here tonight, even including myself, Lord, that at some point we have thought of giving up and not moving forward, Lord, I ask that this word instill life, instill peace, instill encouragement, Lord, on us so we can move on, Lord.

Help us not to be easily distracted, Lord, not to listen to any voice out there, but to be aware of your voice, Lord. Be aware of your correction, be aware, Lord, of those glimpses of your spirit, Lord, directing us at all times. You have our best interests in mind, Lord, and I believe so.

I ask you please, my God, those interests that you have keep us safe, keep us on track and that we can continue to see life, despite the circumstances, that we can continue to see it as you see it, looking for your plans to be carried out in our lives, and not necessarily ours. Guide us, Lord Jesus, I ask you please, that when we leave here that you take us safely to our homes, that you take us with peace, that you please grant us a peaceful, restful sleep and that tomorrow, if so You allow it, Lord, we can get up to face everything that tomorrow brings.

Thank you for each one of my brothers and sisters, Lord. Bless them, grant them your peace and take us all with your good. In the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. God bless you my brothers and sisters, forward in the Lord.