Patience in the Middle of Pain

Never assume that the way it is now is the way that it always will be.

This is hope.

Whatever pain is lodged in your heart right now, whether it is from ministry or any other aspect of life, Satan wants to shout that this is the way it is, and this is the way it always will be. When that message goes through my head over and over my instinct is to run, to put as much distance as possible between the pain and myself, because I am quite sure that I can’t take anymore.

God’s instruction in that place is a hard word. I’m not to run, I’m to do the opposite – to be still. “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him, fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices.” (Psalm 37:7).

How do I do this? How do I be still and wait patiently? It goes against every natural instinct I have. How do I turn pounding feet into trusting stillness? It requires a firm faith that God is working even when I cannot see the evidence of it.

Hosea 6:3 tells me that, “His going out is as sure as the dawn.” As earth circles the sun it is just as dark here at 10 PM as it is at 5 AM. What I can’t see at 5 AM is that the sun breaking over the horizon is coming quickly. It doesn’t look any different then it did at 10, and yet so much has been happening that I cannot see.

The sun rising every day is a sure thing, and God’s work in our lives is just as sure.

Wait for it.

When all seems dark around you, know that light is coming just as certainly as the sun will rise tomorrow.

Hosea continues, “He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” Like a pounding, drenching rain over all the hard, cracked places in hearts, Jesus comes to us. The breaking of darkness and dryness is headed your way, just as certainly as the sun has been racing towards your horizon as you have lain in bed.

Jesus WILL show up in your situation. Every day of your life the sun has risen without you giving it much thought, without you contributing to its rising, and God’s work is just as sure, just as certain, and thank goodness, just as dependent on Him and not us.

I hope today you can see the first rays of light, the first rain cloud on the horizon in the middle of your pain. But if you can’t, that’s okay, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s coming.

I want to have a faith big enough to find my sunglasses and umbrella, which I think actually looks like praising Him now, while I wait for the sun to rise and the rain to come.