Worth the Weight

So, I got the title from the back of a Lady and Sons t-shirt, but it still makes my point. The last two months I have been in one of those seasons in life where there seems to be one recurring theme…..WAIT. Isn’t learning to wait such a hard lesson? I can remember learning this lesson before and here I am, many years later, learning it again. Over the past two months there have been many lessons, both small and large, that involved what Elisabeth Elliot calls a “holding pattern”-a required stillness. If you think about it, it isn’t actually waiting that we are learning to do, it is learning how to wait. We don’t have a choice in the waiting. All we can do is learn how to wait well. So, instead of boring you with all of the opportunities we have had to learn this lately, I thought I would share the words, (most from Elisabeth Elliot and scripture) that have brought so much encouragement to our home as we learn how to wait well all over again.

"So long as our idea of surrender is limited to the renouncing of unlawful things, we have never grasped its true meaning."

"If my life is broken when given to Jesus, it is because pieces will feed a multitude, while a loaf will satisfy only a little lad."

"How can God work His will in me if I am clogged with wishes of my own? Thy will be done."

"The heart set to do the Father's will need never fear defeat."

"Lead me in thy truth...on thee do I wait all the day." Psalms 25:5

"To wait on the Lord is to stand perfectly still...Can we two trust His words, 'Is not the Lord your God with you? and hath he not given you rest on every side?'"
1 Chronicles 22:18

"Even here He can refresh us, even here He can renew us."

"Waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one's thoughts."

"Waiting silently is the hardest thing of all...things we feel most deeply we ought to learn to be silent about, at least until we have talked them over thoroughly with God."

"Never pass up an opportunity to keep your mouth shut."

"Tomorrow was not our business; it was His. Letting it rest with Him was the discipline of the day, and it was enough."

"How long, Lord, must I wait?
Never mind, child. Trust me."