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PROGRAM D-7508
Have you ever been stuck at a red light and you think it’ll never change? Sometimes it seems like God has us stuck at a red light and we’re never going to get anywhere, but there’s nothing we can do to make it turn green.
The waiting periods of our lives, however, are very important to our spiritual growth, for through them we learn to walk by faith and not by sight. When we can accept our waiting periods, even though we don’t understand what’s happening, and tell the Lord that we choose to trust him anyway, we then transfer the responsibility for the situation over to God and the monkey is off our backs. When you finally stop the questioning, end the struggle, give up and turn it over to God, then it begins to dawn on you that you are free. You say to yourself, “Why did I hang on for so long?”
Don’t we frequently misunderstand God when he has us stopped at a red light? We may even doubt his love and care for us, for our minds tell us that if he really cared, he’d move on our behalf right now. But God is willing to have us misunderstand him in order to achieve his goal for us: teaching us to walk by faith and not by sight.
I recall a three-year delay God gave me, when I so wanted to leave a job I was in. From my vantage point, no good could be served by remaining in that job another day. I had a most difficult boss, and I didn’t like the work. It was so painful to get up and make myself go to that office each morning. So, in my usual style, I got the resume updated and started the job search. I had full confidence that I could find something suitable quickly.
Days turned into weeks and months, and jobs that looked like a shoe-in fell through. I asked: “What’s happening, God? Why did you let that job fall through? That would have gotten me out of this mess.”
But finally I gave him permission to keep me there as long as it served his purposes, though I couldn’t imagine what good purposes could possibly be served. That’s the place we have to come to.
Had I left that job when I wanted to, I would have missed three years of personal development that have been essential to my walk with God and the ministry he has given me. The tough lessons I learned then molded my character significantly. And in addition, during those three years I acquired business skills and experience which allowed me to be self employed, and that turned out to be essential in beginning this ministry. God knew what he was doing.
If you’re in that predicament today, wondering why God hasn’t done anything yet, try to remember that the day will come when you can look back and see how he was developing you in that time. Someday he’ll give you a green light to go.