“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” -Psalm 27:13-14

This verse is such an excellent reminder of something that we so often miss out on. It is a reminder to simply wait. Wait on God.

I have a sister who is 7 years younger than me and for the first 5 years of her life we shared a bedroom. When my sister was really little, she would climb out of her crib (yes, she was a monkey) and then she would plop down on the ground and take off towards the living room. Once she reached the living room she would tell my mom that she wasn’t tired so she didn’t want to go to bed. My mom would say “too bad” and put Reggie back in her crib. Well, this happened night after night and several times in one night.

Finally, my mom said enough is enough and she told Reggie that if she got out of bed, my mom was going to take one of her babies for each time she got up. Reggie slept with about 10 babies and each of them were her pride and joy. It worked for a little while, Reggie would only get up once or twice, cry hysterically when my mom would actually take one of her babies, and then lay in bed crying until she fell asleep (she was a horrible roommate).

Then one night it was Reggie’s turn. She said enough is enough. She threw all her babies over the side of her crib, crawled out, plopped down on the ground, and marched her little self to the living room…with all her babies in hand. She looked at my mom and said “Here go” which translates to “Here you go, you can have them so I can have my way.”

While this story is quite funny, it is also an excellent display of what we often do in our walks with God. He has some great plans in store for us, but we don’t understand what the future holds and we get impatient and then we say to God, “Here go.” We are so willing to give up what God has in store for us just because we want immediate gratification. Just like Reggie, she didn’t want to stay in bed, she didn’t understand why she had too so she gave up all of her babies, the things that meant the world to her, just so she could have her way. We give up on God, we are impatient, and we get discouraged so we become willing to let go of all of the good things He has in store for us. We miss out on His blessings so we can have what we think is good in the moment.

Now, back to the story of Reggie. She thought that by giving up all of her babies she would get her way and not have to go to bed. But as you probably imagined, my mom took Reggie and put her right back to bed AND with no babies. I mean Reggie did willingly give them up.

This is the same with us. We can choose to give up all the good things that God has in store for us, but eventually we will end up right back where we were. We won’t be happy like we thought we would be. We might be happy for a little while but not for long. God is the only one who can give us the true happiness that lasts forever. That is why it is so important to stay on the path God has for us. That is why it is so important for us to delay personal gratification and trust God to lead us to something much bigger that He has planned. Even though we may not be content with the current situation, He has long term plans for all of us. And thankfully, God is a lot more forgiving than my mom was with my little sister. He gives us chances to get back on track and He gives us opportunities to come back to Him and follow His plan for our lives.

The verse that I opened with from Psalm is saying that we can be confident that we will see the goodness of the Lord. We can be confident that God will take care of His people. He will take care of us! All we must do sometimes is wait. Wait on the Lord. Be strong and take heart because the goodness of the Lord is coming. Be strong and take heart because the Lord loves us and He will take care of us. Sometimes it just takes a little time.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.” -Ecclesiastes 3:11

~Addison