Waiting

He guides me in paths of righteousness
for His name’s sake. ~Psalm 23:3b

Waiting is a necessary part of the process. There are no shortcuts to maturity. Our personalities resist change, flawed as they are by nature, nurture, and our own indulgence. We’ve been wound ed by others and we’ve wounded ourselves, yet we can be assured that our healing is going on every day. We are in recovery, gradually being delivered from evil. God is working even now for that distant end. We are becoming today what we will inevitably be. We must

Wait for God’s silent molding;
Wait for his full unfolding;
Wait for the days to be.
~Frances Havergal

We must believe that God’s processes are adequate to deal with our sin. The key word is process. We must “be comfortable with ourselves in process,” as a friend of mine once said. God heals by degrees. We grow slowly from one degree of likeness to the next—inch by inch, here a little, there a little. “We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Gain is gain, however small.

When God wants to change us we will know; we will feel what Danish philosopher Sören Kierkegaard called “the infinite weight of God.” The sign of God’s convicting is never free-floating guilt and a vague sense of wrong. That’s the devil’s doing. When God speaks to us there is little ground for doubt or confusion. We are unmistakably convinced of our sin. When that convincing comes we can turn to Him from our sin—repent, to use the biblical word—thank Him for His forgiveness, and ask for His enabling. Then we can leave the process to Him and go on.

And going on is all that matters. God doesn’t look for perfection, only progress. We’re certain of failing, but not overcome with fear. “Nothing will undo us if we keep picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. . . . The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give up” (C. S. Lewis).

As for me, if I’ve made any progress at all, it’s not been by quantum leaps and bounds, but by tentative steps and a number of falls. It’s been a creeping thing, better seen in retrospect than in prospect. The path has been chaotic and haphazard, but I have David’s confidence: God is leading me in paths of righteousness. Every day He is taking me along the path toward the place He wants me to be.

Everything worthwhile takes time, but time is on our side. We have the rest of our lives to grow. God is wonderfully patient. He will never give up on us until His work is done. What He is making of you and me is not yet complete—we are unfinished—but one day very soon God will finish. “Dear friends, now we are children of God,” John assures us, “and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2).

And that’s good enough for me.

Taken from Psalm 23: The Song of a Passionate Heart, ©1994 by David Roper. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Box 3566 Grand Rapids, MI 49501. All rights reserved.