So Where Do I Fit and What Is Next?

It's not my favorite way to do a blog post, not having a neatly wrapped up conclusion.  This post meanders, but I think it's where I am right now, in a meandering kind of space.  You've been warned.

When I first started attending the church I am currently attending, I was really hard on the pastor, and on the congregation.  I was an outsider who was viewing from the outside, and because I was such a mess I viewed it from messy eyes and with a messy heart.  Fast forward now over nine months, and I have fallen in love with these people and just simply think the world of my pastor, the associate pastor, my mentor, and the friends these people have become.

I suppose like most human beings (gosh, I hope I'm not so different), I judge.  I don't think I saw people for who they were because I just couldn't.  The limitation was in me.  Now, I see a lot of subtlety that was lost when I could only see the surface.  Now I see the grace of these people who have been called together, who worship together, who serve together.  Grace is a marvelous thing.

Now?  I find myself being thoughtful on how to join this community.  Am I called to be more than a participant?  Am I called to give more?  How can my gifts be utilized here?  I don't have the answer yet.

I have an inkling as to what it is that God wants to do with me, in me, in my life.  I have a few ideas, but... even in having the ideas I have, I feel like I'm hearing "wait". 

Interestingly, or maybe not - as this might be the most disjointed and unfocused blog post ever - it's not just in the realm of ministry that I am hearing God say "wait".  I'm also hearing this "wait and patience" in other areas in my life.  I think I am in development time.  Gaah.  Development time.

I am the type of person who when God is leading me in a direction I spend some time in prayer, if I find the direction Biblically aligned, and if I feel peace about it - even if it scares me - I jump off that cliff (truthfully, the timing on all of this can be surprisingly quick).  God asks me for things and I'm all in.  I am an action kind of girl.  But hearing "wait", hearing "patience", hearing "not yet, daughter" frustrates the snot out of me.  I am not a "wait" kind of girl.  And yet, knowing this?  Knowing how God created me to be this woman of action, God still asks for my patience, he still asks me to wait.

I know, too, that waiting is my choice.  I know that I don't really have to wait.  I can choose to go my own way and he'll make something of that, he'll let me go and do my own deal.  The thing is, I know he'll have to do some work to get me back on HIS path and it just means a delay in getting there.  Somehow I think that the delay would be more painful than just waiting for now.

So, why does he ask me to wait?  I'm not sure.  Maybe there are lessons for me in the waiting.  Perhaps I am waiting for someone to join me who is not ready yet.  It could be that the situation I am in has not been prepared for me.  Most likely, I have some growing up to do.  The nice thing about being a child of God and waiting for his voice is that I don't need to know all of the whys, though knowing would make me happy (I think).  I know I need to trust.

Isaiah 40:31

King James Version (KJV)

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

So, teach me, Lord... to wait.