After All the Waiting

I had a dream about meeting a man who could have been the one. In the dream, I had to choose between him and the one God chose for me. I woke up before I could make a choice.

In my first year of college, my professor and several students dispelled the idea of the one. I went to a Christian college, and they didn’t believe that God has the one for each of us?!? I was stricken because I had just committed to wait for God to unfold the love story He wrote for me. Now, there were very smart people telling me that there’s no love story, not the earthly romantic one anyway. Ouch.

I’ve long settled in mind and heart two things. First, there are many possible the one in our lives. There are a number of people we could marry and God would bless that marriage. Second, we serve a living God and He can absolutely write our earthly love stories if we choose to turn that part of our lives over to Him. God – who provides everything – can and wants to provide for us the one.

It’s like my dream. The man was a great man who loves God and interested. But I knew – like we know in dreams – that he wasn’t the man God wrote in His story for me. Still, I also knew that if I chose to pursue that relationship, God would bless it. But did I want to? Or did I want to wait a little bit longer?

I’m so tired of waiting. I’m just going to be very honest. I turn 31 years old on Saturday, and I suspect that through the dream, either God or my subconscious (maybe both) is reminding me that I have waited this long. I am able to wait a little bit longer.

At least I want to. Maybe I didn’t make a choice in the dream, but I want to choose while I’m awake. I want to choose God’s the one. There’s a lot of bravado in that sentence, but it’s hard. It’s tiring. It’s even annoying. I’m sick of praying for him. I’m annoyed at myself for having the same prayers. Sometimes – oh God, please forgive me – I just pray, “God, You know.” Then I sigh, maybe cry, and refuse to dwell.

It’s not even just about God’s the one. It’s about my other dreams and hopes. It’s about the things that doesn’t ever change no matter what I do. It’s about the prayers that have been around for years where God’s only answer is to wait. It’s about having a lot of prayer journals with the same words in them.

It’s about roaming the dessert for 40 years. It’s about waiting 25 years for a son. It’s about waiting your whole life to see the Messiah, and you see a baby. He’s a beautiful baby, but a baby who hasn’t done any Messiah-ing.

I don’t know what you’re waiting on God for, but may we all be reminded that it’s worth it.

“I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.” Jeremiah 29:11, MSG

That’s what I hold onto. That it all this waiting is worth it. That God’s story is better. That it will be EPIC.

A grain of salt, though: last year, God started working on me to let go. To let go of my dreams and hopes. To let go of what I’m waiting on Him for. To let go and to settle in my heart and spirit that if there’s no epic-ness, that if God didn’t deliver, it is well with my soul. Because we seek the Giver, and not His gifts.

It’s chilling to think that all this waiting was for nothing, but God also reminded me to look at the birds in the sky and the lilies of the valley. Whatever happens after all the waiting, even if it’s not the outcome we thought of, it will be EPIC because it’s God’s plan.

Linking up today with Holley Gerth’s Coffee For Your Heart.