Embracing God in the Wilderness

Hello Friends!

While agonizing with the Lord over something difficult in my life, I was reminded to re-read my blog posts.  This particular one reminded me that even though the storms come, God has been faithful in the past and He will continue to be faithful in the current circumstance.

I hope you too recall God's faithfulness in your life.


 I am now on the brink of seeing my business launched called Welcome Services, which will be coaching individuals through the stress of culture shock and training company employees on how to transition well cross-culturally.

But this dream did not happen overnight.  I felt I needed to share with you how God has used Waiting as like an old friend to shape and mold me.

I entered the Waiting Wilderness, when 16 years ago, doctors discovered I had a life long illness. 

Young, passionate, and a burden to serve God as a missionary, I remember lying in bed, my body racked with pain. I felt trapped in my body and cheated of life. In my anger and desperation, I cried out for God to heal me.

               

I’ll never forget God’s loving answer.

              

The most unexpected words came softly to me….

                “Wait.”

“Christy, ‘What you need for now is patient endurance so that you will continue to do God’s will, then you will receive all that He has has promised.’” 1

Have you been there before?

After agonizing in prayer for God to change your situation, instead of relieving you of the circumstances, He tells you to stay where you are.

Instead of calming the storm, He decides to calm the child in the midst of the storm. 

It was in the storm, God taught me the secret of indescribable contentment and joy in the wilderness of waiting!  

 Simply put…Jesus was enough!

After fighting with God to heal me, I came to a point of total surrender of my will and of my circumstances.  God’s peace flooded my soul and suddenly what I had been waiting for was no longer important to me.  What mattered most to me was to love and be loved by God.

Recently, I have been encouraged by King David’s unique love relationship with the Lord.  He learned to find His strength in God in the desert where food and water were scarce and true friends were few.

After being anointed as the next King, he spent the next 20 years as a fugitive, hiding from his opponent, many times his very life hanging in the balance.  Yet in the midst of the turmoil David learned to embrace God in the wilderness.  His soul could say,

“Now I stroll at leisure with God in the sunlit fields of life.” 2

Now I walk the joyful journey with God in eager anticipation to see Him birth a dream that 16 years ago I would have never dreamed possible!  When we give all our plans, dreams, and hopes to God and allow His love to transform us He then uses our little lives in ways we never imagined.

God still has not healed me and neither does He have to.  He is in full control of this weak body and yet still uses me for His glory, even here in Kenya, Africa!

1.       Hebrews 10:39 (NLT)  2. Psalm 16:11 (NAS) 3. Psalm 56:13 (The Message)