When Your Heart Needs Perspective in the Waiting
There’s hope for perspective in the waiting.
My perspective in the waiting gets clouded by my impatience. Waiting. I don’t love it. It can make me feel crabby and in the long waits for answers to prayer, it can make me feel hopeless. And hopelessness is a desperate place to be.
But what happens when the things of life drag us down to depths we never dreamed we would reach? What happens when hope seems as distant as the faintest star in the night sky? What happens when we lose our perspective in the waiting?
It’s easy to get stuck in a disbelieving cycle that God can and will come through for us. In fact, I daresay, it’s a tactic the enemy of our souls uses to isolate us even further. It’s in these moments of doubt that we must turn to the only one who can help us. In fact, we can bring our doubts to him and receive grace.
This week’s Scripture passage
“We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in you.” Psalm 33:20-22.
Positioning myself to wait in hope means that I need to recognize that God is my help and that he is working in ways that I cannot see, but I need to trust him. He is your helper. You can trust in him.
Then I need to hide in him–he is my shield. He is your shield. When we hide in him, we go where he wants us to go, and we stay protected from the tactics of the enemy.
One key component to this kind of waiting–the kind that knows hope–is found in rejoicing. We can rejoice because of who God is. He is kind, merciful, full of grace, loving, good, just, faithful. Think about his goodness towards you, remember his faithfulness, rejoice that he rescues you.
This week’s prayer
“Lord Jesus, King of kings, and Lord of lords, we glorify your name. You are most worthy of praise and there is no one like you. Our hearts bear burdens that steal our hope and we need you. We need you to be our hope. As we wait in you let your unfailing love fall upon us. Wrap us in your love like a comforting blanket on a cold and windy day.
You are our help and shield. You are with us, you guide us, and you defend us. May we rest in you, trusting and believing that you are working behind the scenes in ways that we cannot see. If we cannot see your hand at work, help us to trust your heart. You are for us and you never leave us nor forsake us.
We praise your name and receive your hope.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
A Prayer to Release and Experience Peace
It’s time to release.
What are you gripping? Do you ever feel like if you let go, you’ll fall into a chasm of hopelessness? There’s a time to fight and hang on for dear life and then there’s a time to release.
And sometimes the release is the best battle strategy we could ever choose. Sometimes the release is what fighting looks like and releasing is when we find our strength.
It’s one of the paradoxes of following Christ. It’s a both/and. It’s both facing the battle and releasing. You can stand firm on your battlefield and still choose to release. But what do we release?
We release our thanksgiving, our praise, our remembrance of who God is and what he has done. That’s how we battle.
We release our control and perceived outcome on how God should move in our situation. That’s how we know peace and hope.
The following scripture passage is taken from 2 Chronicles 20. The verses I share here are only a small part of the greater story and I hope you’ll open your Bible and read the full chapter. First, they stood, and then they released.
Stand and Release
“After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: ‘Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.” As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.” 2 Chronicles 20:21-22
Enemies take different forms. They can be people, but they can take shape through our insecurities, our doubts, and even our thoughts. But God. He transforms, he renews, he holds us close, and he never fails.
Let’s release today. Release what? Both praise, worship, thanksgiving and our fears about the future, or our grip on the outcome of our current circumstances.
The Prayer:
Holy God,
We come to you unknowing how you will work things out, but we stand firm in our faith that you love, that you are our refuge, that through you we are strong. And as we stand, we release our praise for your goodness and kindness. That you are great and mighty and oh so gracious. Oh Lord, you are with us, right here, right now. You are in our past, and already in our tomorrows, and we are grateful.
God, we release our angst over our lives and our kids’ lives and the circumstances that we have no control over, but seem to be controlling us. We surrender them to you and we trust you. We know that as we trust, we cannot be shaken, we cannot fail, because you are our rock and refuge. You help, you provide, and you guide.
Lord, as we release we ask that you would move on our behalf and that you would enable us to trust you even when we cannot see you. Holy One, you are mighty and good and filled with inexpressible love for us and we receive you. We believe you and we receive your love.
Let us go into our todays with confidence and face our tomorrows with trust because you are with us.
I love you, Lord and praise you with all that I am. I look to you. You are my everything, In Jesus’ name, Amen.
I pray that this week is a week of release. That you will be set free in ways you never dreamed.
I wrote an article on what it means to have a gentle and quiet spirit. If you’d like to read it, you can find it here.
May Lord bless you as the sun rises and sets and may you know the light of his face as he looks at you,
xoxo,
Jessica
The Psalms Prayer Project Volume 3
Do you ever feel like the earth is giving way beneath your feet and everything you thought to be true and right turns out to be sideways and upside down?
I love these verses from Psalms 46:1-5
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns.”
They speak to me of comfort and strength in the midst of exploding circumstances. We find comfort and strength in God and discover our joy in his living water. We can face the day, with whatever it brings, because our feet and faith and eyes are firmly rooted in God.
Joy and sorrow are sisters who live side by side. And it’s okay. Because even when it seems as though I’ve lost my way, I stay secure because verses 1 and 5 are the bookends that hold up the messy middle that is my life.
Look at those verses again. Those are the bookends to everything that’s happening in the middle. God is our refuge, our strength, and very present to help us in our present. And we can know that on the backside of whatever it is we’re facing that God is in our midst, holding us up, and bringing the sun.
The Prayer.
Holy God,
You are forever mighty, forever good, forever our strength and refuge. We praise you! We lift your name and we choose to stand, today, right now, on your assurances that you are near. You are with us.
Lord, give us grace to face our middles: our middle of day messes, middle of the night messes, and the middle of life. We trust that you are faithful to keep your promises and that you do not fail. God, we love you, we glorify you, and we choose today to live for you with our whole hearts and our whole selves.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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