This post is part of the series His Encouragement
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A cheery and warm welcome, dearest friends, to His Encouragement: Biblical Inspiration for Your Thursday. Every Thursday, a few blogging friends and I will each bring you a Bible verse and a little hope-filled discussion. We pray that these Thursday posts help you end your week strong in God’s love and purpose for you. We also welcome you to join the conversation by commenting with your thoughts. God bless!
Today’s Thursday Encouragement
“Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!” — Psalm 27:14, NKJV
Waiting is hard!
Waiting is one of life’s most difficult challenges. Impatience is a common thread in the history of humanity, and in today’s fast-paced society addicted to instant gratification, waiting even just a little bit has become agonizing. Remember back in the 1990s when you had to wait for the Internet connection to dial up or for websites to take 3-ish minutes to load? Now we grow impatient if a website takes more than 30 seconds to load!
We often grow tired of waiting. It is much easier to either give up whatever it was we were waiting for or try to get the result we wanted ourselves. Then what happens when we have to wait an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year or more for something?
Unfortunately, the expectation of instant gratification can weasel its way into our spiritual life as well. Impatience in spiritual matters can pose a threat to our faith and our trust in the Lord. The longer we wait, the greater the opportunity for our courage and conviction to waver. The human heart, after all, is a frail thing. Yet, throughout the Scriptures, we are reminded: “Wait on the Lord.”
But have you ever had to wait? Are you waiting now? Perhaps you are currently waiting for an answer to a fervent prayer regarding a big decision for your life and your family. Maybe you or a loved one are facing a health crisis and it seems your prayers for healing are going unnoticed. It could be that you are feeling alone, unheard, abandoned. Don’t be discouraged! Let’s read the second half of Psalm 27:14 together: “And He [the Lord] shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!”
Even when it seems God is silent, He is never far away from us and He knows better than we do. We need to trust in Him and He will give us the strength to pull through the dreadful period of waiting. The answers will come, but in His time. Not ours.
Now it is your turn! How does today’s verse encourage you? What verse or passage is blessing you today?
Be sure to also visit my fellow bloggers and read their encouragement for your Thursday as well:
- Trisha of Joy of Reading
- Nicole of The Christian Fiction Girl
- Jessica of A Baker’s Perspective
- Becca of The Becca Files
Are you a blogger? If you would like to join us every Thursday, please contact Trisha or Nicole.
Continue reading this series:
His Encouragement: Joy comes with the morning
Um, I am the worst at waiting. I just want things now, as we all do. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s to never pray for patience because boy will God teach you a lesson on that (ha!). This verse is one that I need to have in my house, my car, my phone, my office, etc…. you get the picture. Thank you for the reminder 🙂
Haha, so true! I thought over the years I had learned patience… until I had my children. A teething toddler and a super fussy newborn sure let me know very quickly that I was not as patient as I thought. I still have a lot of growing to do! Praise the Lord He gives us the strength to do it. 🙂
I love this Jacquelyn! It’s one of my most favorite verses in Psalms. I love the part that God will strengthen my heart. Waiting is hard. It’s the unknown part that is hard for me. I am a control freak. I am way better now than I used to be, but that is only because I stopped fighting God for control over my life. I still struggle with the unknown in waiting, but I’m less tense about it. Maybe one day I will never be tense about the waiting ever again! And, it is true. When you lean on God, He really does strengthen your heart. I can’t actually believe how far I’ve come in the past few years, and it is all because of God!
The unknown can be difficult to cope with, but I love how you look back on what God has done for you to help you through the unknowns of today. God bless!
Waiting is so hard! But His time is perfect. Thank you for sharing this verse today!
You’re welcome! 🙂 God bless!
So true! Oh man, have you been listening to my conversations?? Haha but seriously–cell phones and ipods and tablets and tvs and computers and all of these different devices shower us with instant gratification and it can be VERY addicting. We almost forget what life was like without google! Waiting on the Lord can be tough, but it’s also for the better. God’s timing is always better than ours. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Haha! I went without a personal computer for about two months recently after mine… uh… fried, and I have to say that in some ways it was quite freeing. Reminded me on summers during my youth, before computers and the Internet. 😀 God bless!