Hurry Up! And wait...

Something that God has been working on in my life for the past several years is patience and waiting on Him. Anyone who knows me probably knows that I am not all about patience. I tend to be pretty task oriented and once I know what I am supposed to do I just go "get 'er done." Right then. Immediately. The sooner the better.

But when it comes to life in general and specifically the plans God has for my life, well, it just doesn't work that way. I think that is something that God has gradually been trying to show me since I graduated high school and set out to fulfill "My Plan."

1. Go to Bible college
2. Meet the love of my life
3. Graduate
4. Get married immediately after graduation
5. Go serve God on a foreign mission field, preferably South Africa in an orphanage
6. Have about a dozen kids of my own

My first clue that perhaps my plan wasn't the same as God's came when I couldn't finish my second semester of college for health reasons - set back number 1. Then I transferred to another school - set back number 2. Then due to the same health reasons I couldn't take all the required classes I needed to take for a couple of years. I ended up taking a total of 6 years to complete my four year degree, but I finished! I could finally check that off the list.

But what happened to step 2? Meet the love of my life? "Umm... God did you forget something? I mean, I even 'gave' you two extra years? I think something got skipped here and it kinda messed up any plans on fulfilling steps 4 and 6." Wasn't I generous? Allowing God extra time to do as I wanted...

Well, since God had already shown me during one of my two junior years that the mission field was my idea not His, my plan was officially laying in ruins at His feet. Which is probably where He had been gently trying to get it the whole time. All I could do was take the pen writing the story of my life and hand it over to Him. And that's where the waiting really began.

I am 26 years old and have no boyfriend, no husband, no kids. I work for a wonderful bank rather than a full-time ministry. I work with 4 year old girls, in nursery, on a bus, and in Junior church rather than with orphans. God's story for my life is turning out very different than I planned for it to be written. There are days I want to grab that pen and write my own story. And there are many, many times when the desire to have my own way rises up and threatens to choke the joy out of my life.

That's when I have to start all over. Here is my new list. Or maybe it's more of a thought process...

1. God's plan for me is the best plan; it will bring me the most joy (not necessarily happiness).
2. I want to have God's unexplainable joy in my life.
3. Therefore I want God's plan, however different from my own it may be, more than I want my plan.

Waiting is not easy. Impatience is deeply ingrained. Deep, heartfelt desires do not disappear or stay surrendered easily. There are times that I may have to repeat this thought process over and over and over to myself  within the same 5 minute span. But it is becoming easier. It's getting easier to say "Not my will but Thine Lord" combined with "though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." ('Cause I know that God's plans for me will not be void of pain and suffering.) I just have to keep surrendering that pen and have faith that God's plan for me will be written out nice and clear in due time. After all, His timing is always perfect. 

"Blessed Father, we humbly beseech Thee, let none that wait on Thee be ashamed; no, not one. Some are weary, and the time of wait appears long. And some are feeble, and scarcely know how to wait... Father, teach us how to wait...let none that wait on Thee be ashamed!"  (Taken from Andrew Murray's devotional Waiting on God. I saw this quote on a friend's Facebook status and I think it kinda sums up my own prayers on to God about waiting.)