God's patience always involves his passion

WOW! So I was talking about the silence in my life... well today the Lord just blew my mind! I have been talking a lot about this waiting. Well the other day I just wasn't feeling like I was being fed enough from the studies I am reading and the devotions that I do... So I decided to go and search the Bible for all the times that the Lord talks about waiting. I loved all of the verses I read, but one really hit my heart and I included it in one of my last posts, Isaiah 30:18.

Now, have you ever had one of those moments where you are in total disbelief that you are hearing the same thing from all different places? You even try to convince yourself it had to come from the same source... or maybe it was a different verse or something. Feeling drained from working at a yard sale this morning, attending a surprise birthday party for a friend, doing laundry, feeding the family etc.... I began to listen to Beth Moore's audio and do you know that she hit me with Isaiah 30:18 AGAIN?! Not only did the Lord use this to hit me, but it took the verse apart. I felt like the Lord gave me the verse and I loved it, but then he said, "No Nancy you really need to look at this and understand what I'm telling you." Crazy right? Here look:

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him. Isaiah 30:18 NIV

Well in the Hebrew translation the word longs and the word wait are the same word. In the English Standard Version the translation reads:

The Lord waits... blessed are all those who wait.

So then as I'm listening this is what I hear... It is not a wait without the longing. If you don't have the longing then you are just passing time. WAIT! It gets even better... this just took me to my knees... Read the verse again... The Lord is also waiting... he is waiting to be gracious to ME! There is something the wait is for. So you wait and wait and just like I said the other day it is like the silence before the storm as the Lord hits you with such velocity it blows you over! You can wait and long but you can not let yourself freight. Life is tough. Waiting is tough. But what turns this all around is the TRUST we have in the Lord.

I am just loving Jesus tonight! Although I do need to get to bed. I decided to blog this moment instead of finish folding the laundry... laundry can wait right? I pray that you all have a blessed night!


side note: I just think it is so funny that on my post titled silence before the storm it felt so strange to me. Then I got a few comments and emails and I felt like something just wasn't right so I decided I was going to try and "fix" it, but really the Lord decided to fix it tonight. What an awesome God we have.

Thank you Lord for continuing to stay on my heart and show me your voice. Amen!