Waiting For An Open Door {Traveling Desert Roads}

Have you been hurt by the church? Then my story is for you.

This Sunday sermon will be served dry and on the rocks. The refinement of desire is done best in the desert, which is why God has strategically placed me here.

There I was on a Sunday morning, listening to Pastor Rick preach about choosing the right doorways to walk through. I found myself on a mansion balcony in the Arizona desert. The morning sun was shining on my back as I sat in an expensive patio chair, feet propped up on an equally expensive footstool.  I had headphones in my ears and I surveyed the brown dry landscape, observing the rocks piled up atop of one another along the mountainside. I tuned into the live feed to listen to Pastor Rick talk about doors and why we should walk through the ones that are open and thank God for the ones that are closed.

But what if all the doorways in the desert are presently closed?

How do you wait in that dry place with confidence and dignity?

What do you do when you have been hurt by a church that was made for people who were hurt by the church? (read that twice to let it sink in).

The road home might be a straight line, but it is long and monotonous and seems to stretch on for eternity.

This was the first Sunday that I would miss a service at my newly adopted church- this is meaningful to me. It’s the first opportunity to show myself that I have learned not to hold to tightly, not to grasp so desperately, but rather to allow my refinement to come slowly as my discipleship unfolds gradually.

I am learning to let God fill the absences in His own way instead of cramming them with my chosen substitutes.

As a former church addict, missing a Sunday now and then is probably a good thing for my faith. Although I don’t want to learn about closed doors here in the desert, this is most likely the best place to begin again.

And so my rebellious nature protests in defiance as God patiently refines my desires.

This is also the first week that I am writing a blog without direction or intent. What am I doing here, God?

My blog came on the scene with a rapid fire confession back in November of last year- it was epic and unprecedented in the history of my own personal writing. Then came a fresh outpouring of creative writing, a continuation of the healing process during a raw time of public sharing. After that I blogged straight through Genesis, beginning with Abel and following all the shame stories in Scripture I could get my hands on. I closed it out last week with the last chapter of Joseph’s story, because I felt myself longing to wander into new territory.

So here I am typing without structure. What am I writing for? 

I am actively and daily talking to God about this, and I don’t have an answer just yet. As with so many things in my life which have the power to shape my future, I am waiting on a higher power to move so that I can move with it.

I am surrounded by closed doors, waiting to see which one opens next. My faith stands in the hallway, a long stretch of highway through the desert with barred exits on both sides.

I have joined a small group and am reading through the Saddleback bible study which is appropriately themed: “Putting It Together Again When It’s All Fallen Apart”. This week I find myself in the chapter by Pastor Holladay titled Expect And Reject Opposition. I have been spending extra time circling, highlighting, underlining and marking up the sub-section called discouragement.

When I face closed doors, I tend to get discouraged- it’s my personality and my internal programming. Whether doors are closed by my own doing or by God’s grace, or a combination of both, I languish as I wait for another one to open.

And as I contemplated discouragement this week, I found myself clicking into a website about how to turn your blog into a money-making business. Follow specific consecutive steps to increase your traffic, grow your following and start making money in less than 6 months!

Do I qualify? Sure. Am I capable? Absolutely. Am I willing?

Nope.

Writing is my calling for this season of life, not my agenda for financial success. So I paused my latest promotion on Facebook because I needed to do a recheck on my heart and my emotions. I took time to reflect on where I am at in the present moment. Why am I still writing now?

I have a history of putting doorstops into the very doors that God wants to close for me.

He has had to wrench me away where I stood defiantly in the doorway, hands planted firmly on my hips, stubborn look on my face, with the demeanor of a defensive warrior.

“Oh no, not this door, God. You won’t ever close this door.”

Oh yes, He did.

For my safety, He closed it firmly, and he pulled me back inside before I made yet another stupid mistake.

And now I am in the desert learning about closed doors on a Sunday morning, listening to Pastor Rick-

 “How many of you have walked through what you thought was the right door, but it was actually the wrong door? There are some doors you walk through and it takes years to get back on track.”

Yep. The story of my life for the past year. I nod and blink in the direction of the dry mountainside before me.

The desert rocks stare back at me in stony silence.

“Sometimes God shuts a door for my protection. God knows how to close doors to protect you and how to open doors to bless you.”

I don’t like closed doors- they make me feel punished.

Should I feel protected? I had never considered…

“Sometimes God removes a harmful person from your life for your protection. Do NOT run after them! Don’t do it! When you do, that’s called co-dependency.”

Oh God, this resonates deep. I devoted an entire blog of my confession to this very topic. I still struggle, even now. Some days I want to forget all the healing progress I have made and run full speed back into the arms of the past.

“You do not need them. God has shut the door- do not run after them. Some of you need to hear that today.”

Yes, I do. The desert is a hard teacher, Pastor Rick.

“They have walked out and you need to let them walk out. God has a bigger plan, a better idea and a greater door for your life. He often shuts a door for your protection.”

A better plan- one that includes the firm and abrupt shutting of doors? I process this logic as I go about the rest of my day.

My family and I eat peanuts and watch baseball and catch the Blue Angels in action.

And all the while I think about doors and desert mountains, co-dependency and new hope.

I watch those blue and gold jets make lines in the sky and I wonder- what am I doing here, praying and seeking answers in this dry desert place?

“Sometimes God cracks open a door to give me a glimpse of my future long before I am ready to walk into it.”

Well this seems unfair- closed doors feel like punishment.

Should they feel like hope?

“When God gives you a vision He never gives it to you all at once- He wants to keep you growing.”

Ok, but I am discouraged. Tell me more. I need more.

“Some of you have no idea the success and blessing and ways that God wants to prosper your life, but you are not mature enough to handle it yet. Right now you are a little bit too selfish.”

Yep. This is true- I will own this one. Keep preaching...

“We need to prove we are capable of handling the blessing He wants to pour out on our life.”

Oh- like a lengthy assignment or a long-term stake-out. A sojourn through the desert on the long road to a wellspring of abundance.

This I can understand. This I can do.

But when do I get my new ministry?

“In God’s timetable He will bring it to pass.”

Of course- this again. The unknown, the uncertain. The call for trust.

Because an immature child needs to grow naturally through each stage of development.

My childlike stubborn pride presses back hard against this truth.

Later in the week, as we ride back home on the long stretch of highway where there is nothing but dry rocks and brown dust and tumble weeds, I think about that sermon and how appropriate it was for me to hear at this point in the journey.

“Ok, God, I accept that this door is shut, I will stop jiggling the handle and trying to pick the lock. I surrender! So, where to from here? You can open the next door now!”

The desert is dry, quiet and empty. The waiting is pregnant with hope, but it is still a waiting.

I remember the words from Sunday that struck me deeper than my pride-

“Here is the problem- a lot of times God opens up the door a little bit and you get a little glimpse and think ‘oh, that’s my dream for my life, I would LOVE to do that, it’s what God made me for, this is what I really want to do!’”

Yes, precisely.

I munch on communion crackers as I dwell on God’s timing, consuming the last remaining evidence of my previously broken dreams. I had purchased a box of communion crackers on day when I was certain I would never step foot into a church again. In my stubborn pride I decided to never return to the people of God for all the ways they had disappointed me.

That lasted all of two Sundays.

Now I consume that holy and forgotten bread like a starving wanderer on the long road through a dry arid landscape, listening to words of retribution and correction from this new spiritual father I have adopted.

“We immediately, without waiting on God, run out and try to accomplish the vision in our own way and in our own time, and we fall flat on our face.”

Oh yes, I most certainly did that, in a most epic and ungraceful manner.

I pass the communion bread back to my family as I share the broken remnant of unholy dreams. I know that boredom and long desert roads will make us all into consumer Christians if we are not mindful of our deepest needs.

“And then we come crawling back to God and say, ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry, I really let you down. Did I just miss the vision?’”

This has become a great fear of mine. Did I misread my calling? Because honestly, multiple people in high and authoritative places in numerous faith communities have told me I was chosen rightly, that I have a special gift, than I am more than qualified.

Did I misunderstand the vision for my life?

“And God says “No, no! I gave you that vision, I gave you that dream, it’s from Me. You just didn’t wait for part two and part three!”

I really needed to hear this Pastor Rick. Did you know you were preaching right to me?

As we come closer to home, we approach the burnt hillsides from a fire that raged through the landscape several months ago.

I notice that green things are starting to bud up from the destruction.

“The way God intends to fulfill the vision in your life is often the exact opposite of the way you think you should do it.”

There is a cross that survived the fire- it stands tall as the tiny leaves of green poke stubbornly up from the burnt earth.

My intentions were burned in a refining fire because I did not wait or call on God’s guidance.

“And that’s why you fall flat on your face.”

I was in such a hurry that I tripped over God’s perfect plan.

Thankfully green can still rise up from the charred remains.

It may take a year or two before that hillside looks resurrected, but each day is an opportunity for growth.

“When you are waiting, it’s not as if God isn’t working. When you are waiting you are supposed to be preparing, and when you’re waiting God is getting things lined up in the way that He wants to. And God can do more in five minutes on His timing than you can do in fifty years on yours. He can flip things around in amazing ways. So when He cracks that door it’s just helping you see where He wants to take you.”

So putting it together again when it’s all fallen apart? For me, this is a season of waiting.

And waiting can feel like punishment.

Or it can feel like protection and hope.

I heard Pastor Rick say “God doesn’t sponsor flops.”

Which means my story is not a failure, because His hand is still so clearly upon me, even when I am stubborn and obstinate.

And I am learning to wait like the author of Habakkuk 2:3-

³ This vision is for a future time.
    It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled.
If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently,
    for it will surely take place.
    It will not be delayed.

This barren wilderness of patience has its good days and its bad days. Sometimes it feels like a lot of impatience and some disappointment. Other times it feels like a drink for my thirsty soul.

 I pray and ask God for peace on an almost daily, sometimes hourly, basis. Since my epic failure, it is rare for me to feel fully “at peace” with myself, to be certain of my purpose and my identity. But these closing thoughts of the Sunday sermon were a consolation in the desert and water for my thirsty soul-

“You are not going to feel peace on this side of the door. You only get the peace that surpasses understanding after you go through it in obedience, while you are scared to death. But once you get through it then God gives you the peace.”

The closest thing I can find to support this is when I became a member of my new church. I was in spiritual and emotion turmoil about it up until an hour after signing my name. I would alternate from apathy to terror, back and forth, again and again. I was so afraid of making another mistake.

 But after we drove away from the church as “official” family members, I felt covered with joy and peace like I had not known in many months.

It was the rare kind of peace that surpasses understanding. The kind that grows from within.

“When you walk through that door and you come out on the other side then the peace comes. Don’t expect the peace to come before you obey, it doesn’t work that way. God only gives you peace after you obey.”

So yes, perhaps some peace will not come to us until after we walk through the door of opportunity, and we must sometimes wait a while for it to open.

And as I wait in there in the hallway, I will consume communion in the desert place, and I will pray.

And I will listen, always listen, for wisdom comes on the wings of hope and lands in the barren wilderness for the thirsty soul to drink.

There is only one Scripture you forgot to mention in your sermon, Pastor Rick. It’s the one about me, about my story of slowly blooming where I am planted here in your faith community:

¹⁴ “But then I will win her back once again.
    I will lead her into the desert
    and speak tenderly to her there. ¹⁵ I will return her vineyards to her
    and transform the Valley of Trouble^[b] into a doorway of hope.”

-Hosea 2:14-15

This is my prayer, for myself and for anyone else who has been hurt by the church.

There is an open door for us, too, and the journey begins here in the desert place.

God is the Author of our stories and His vision for us is beyond our biggest dreams.

Amen and amen.

Rebecca

~*~

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A Second Chance {Choose Your Future}- Genesis 40-41

The destruction was everywhere. It was a shocking war scene of epic loss. Tears fell down on mangled toys as we surveyed the damage and sifted through the losses.

During the night our German shepherd had decided to put her signature stamp on all they kids’ toys that were within her reach- there were many causalities. As we cleaned up the damage shred by shard, I told a joke about Paul’s words in Romans 7: “¹⁵ I don’t really understand myself, for I want to chew what is right, but I don’t chew it. Instead, I chew what I hate. ¹⁶ I know that what I am chewing is wrong”. When it comes to words in times of trouble, timing is everything.

It wasn’t a funny joke to my kids and it definitely didn’t get the dog off the hook. I held up the bag of mangled playthings and declared the threatening and very familiar “UH-OOOH!!” as I shook it in her direction. She slunk away, tail and head down in repentance, and spent the rest of the afternoon in the dog house while we held a funeral for all the innocent toys that lost their life that night. Then, to ease the onslaught of tears, we went to the toy store to buy a few new ones. We let them choose from within our parameters based on what needed to be replaced.

Clutching their new ambitions, filled with renewed happiness,  our children headed quickly to the checkout.

And the wait was long- horribly so.

The kids stood there in line with new toys in hands, eager to replace what was lost, urgent to move forward, impatient that paying the price meant waiting for half an hour in line. Why couldn’t we just walk up, shove money at them and go? This big-box toy store (which I won’t call by name but which everybody knows) had the longest and slowest line ever experienced on a Sunday afternoon. All my kids wanted to do was grab their new blessings and run home, but they had to wait for what seemed an eternity, clutching their desires in both hands and squirming in captivity within the boundaries of the line, wiggling impatiently under the security cameras.

My kids had to learn something simple that I am grappling with this week.

Blessing requires waiting. And it requires surrender to a higher plan.

God, sometimes I hate this lesson.

Waiting on God’s timing can seem eternal.

Yet we must pause and be quiet because surrender to freedom usually happens in captivity- the desert place of the unknown.

This week I am waiting for a phone call. Sit with me here as I ruminate. I wait for God’s promises to captivate.

This past Sunday, in addition to the destruction of toys, I heard a sermon at church which resonated in a profound way with the destruction in my past.

Pastor Rick talked about “choosing the right guide for my life”- namely, the Holy Spirit. The sermons in this place have always had impeccable timing with my journey ever since I first came here- this is the Spirit speaking. My new pastor got right to the heart of the issue for me:

“Wait for God’s perfect timing. God always gives His best to those who leave the choice to Him.”

Ugh. I feel that one deep down in my soul. Reveal it and heal it God. Amen.

And then another one-

“Pause and be quiet. You are most likely to hear the Holy Spirit when You are relaxed.”

Oh.

My head down, I slink away to the dog house in repentance to chew on my response.

What do you do when you realize that you are striving for control again? Well, admit you are in prison, for one thing. It could be a dog house, a dining room chair, a blog or a phone call- anything can hold you captive when you strive. My brother Joseph joins me here, where he has been waiting for deliverance for quite some time. He and I are both searching for peace and purpose here in the waiting place.

We long to choose our future.

We acknowledge our desperation.

We were just foolish children who said stupid things for attention. Our dreams were good, but our method was not- right dreams, wrong kingdom. It was all just a misunderstanding, but it landed us in captivity.

But we are not alone- God always leaves a remnant.

40 Some time later, Pharaoh’s chief cup-bearer and chief baker offended their royal master. ² Pharaoh became angry with these two officials, ³ and he put them in the prison where Joseph was, in the palace of the captain of the guard. ⁴ They remained in prison for quite some time, and the captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, who looked after them.

So you have some semblance of authority here in this captivity?

That does not mean you are in control.

In this prison we connect with people who understand our pain. I suppose Joseph found a kind of comradery here, because even though they came from such different backgrounds, the prisoners’ stories intersected here in the similarity of shackles. They must have formed some kind of convenient friendship, the type based on sharing common prison walls.

When it’s time for hard truth, we turn to the ones who have witnessed our strife.

⁵ While they were in prison, Pharaoh’s cup-bearer and baker each had a dream one night, and each dream had its own meaning. ⁶ When Joseph saw them the next morning, he noticed that they both looked upset.⁷ “Why do you look so worried today?” he asked them.

⁸ And they replied, “We both had dreams last night, but no one can tell us what they mean.”

“Interpreting dreams is God’s business,” Joseph replied. “Go ahead and tell me your dreams.”

I wonder about Joseph’s confidence here. I would like to be so certain of my own dreams. How do I know when God is speaking? I search for meaning in Scripture because my brothers and sisters of the past speak to me through the pages of this ancient text.

Joseph, how did you hear God’s voice in the depth of your prison cell? 

Perhaps captivity is the birthplace of revelation. 

Indeed I’m sure it is.

I observe my brother in his divination with admiration and curiosity. God’s response to his trust was to give him an interpretation of an event and an impression of people. Joseph trusted God and he saw people- really saw them, including their brokenness.

Sometimes I see people, too. I have seen those who have hurt me, and their brokenness has been divinely revealed to me in visions and dreams of my own. God provides wisdom to those who wait, and He refines the visionary to prepare for the reception of the vision.

Sometimes God in His mercy will reveal the problem so He can heal it.

One man’s dream is another man’s deliverance.

¹² “This is what the dream means,” Joseph said. “¹³ Within three days Pharaoh will lift you up and restore you to your position as his chief cup-bearer. ¹⁴ And please remember me and do me a favor when things go well for you. Mention me to Pharaoh, so he might let me out of this place. ¹⁵ For I was kidnapped from my homeland, the land of the Hebrews, and now I’m here in prison, but I did nothing to deserve it.”

God, we do not deserve this. We stand there with desires in hand, eager to replace what was lost, urgent to move forward, impatient that paying the price meant waiting for half a lifetime and twice an eternity. Why can’t we just walk up, shove open hands at Him and receive?

Ah, but He is in the waiting. He communes with us there.

We are tired of our captivity. It’s time to surrender to freedom. We want to be free of what holds us back. We want to choose a new future.

He is in the waiting.

²⁰ Pharaoh’s birthday came three days later, and he prepared a banquet for all his officials and staff. He summoned^[a] his chief cup-bearer. ²³ Pharaoh’s chief cup-bearer, however, forgot all about Joseph, never giving him another thought.

Oh to feel forgotten. And by the people you shared captivity with! By the ones who promised to care.

To feel forgotten is to feel afraid.

But the Holy Spirit’s voice is never, ever fear-based. So when we are afraid that we are insignificant, that is a lie. But it is so easy to believe, alone here in this prison of emotion.

Once upon a time there was a strange, tall dark man who ruined everyone’s plans- his name was Father Time. Nobody knew where he came from, but everyone knew where he was going- forward, slow as a snail, fast as a tortoise, enslaving God’s children as he stooped low to make them small, pushing them into the ground with a heavy hand.

The waiting place can feel like an eternal captivity of useless rumination.

41 Two full years later…

God. Where are you?

The destruction was everywhere when this story began. It was a shocking war scene of epic loss. Tears fell on mangled dreams as we surveyed the damage.

Now Joseph and I wait here for that phone call. We jump at every ring. We wince at every text.

We wait for our calling.

Did you know I have a new church family now?

This is my victory, my blessing, my hope.

It is a church of second chances- it’s in the first letter of their name.

I will hold them to that.

“Don’t freak out over delays” said my pastor last Sunday.

Yes, I’m trying, Pastor Rick, I really am trying. Joseph and I have our good days and our bad days. Waiting for purpose and identity is a bit like waiting in a long and endless line for your dashed blessings to be replaced, striving and straining under the Son and avoiding the offense of joy.

Two years to be forgotten? God, it feels like forever and I have only been here for one. I hold Joseph’s hand and sit with him while we pray, feeling the endless longing that stretches on and on throughout each timeless day.

Meanwhile, as we wait, God is moving in our favor. We believe this as we clutch the broken pieces to our wounded hearts.

⁸ One morning Pharaoh was very disturbed by dreams. So he called for all the magicians and wise men of Egypt. When Pharaoh told them his dreams, not one of them could tell him what they meant.

God is working for us, there in places we have never been but are destined to be. He paves the way even while we mourn and grieve. This is how He will one day lift our countenance and give us peace.

⁹ Finally, the king’s chief cup-bearer spoke up. “Today I have been reminded of my failure,” he told Pharaoh. ¹⁰ “Some time ago, you were angry with the chief baker and me, and you imprisoned us in the palace of the captain of the guard. ¹¹ One night the chief baker and I each had a dream, and each dream had its own meaning. ¹² There was a young Hebrew man with us in the prison who was a slave of the captain of the guard. We told him our dreams, and he told us what each of our dreams meant. ¹³ And everything happened just as he had predicted. I was restored to my position as cup-bearer.”

Joseph, how blessed you are to be remembered for your gift! Ah, and the waiting makes it so much sweeter. We would never choose to wait, but we are so glad we did.

We are filled with longing to be remembered by those who have forgotten the comradery we once shared. We long to be restored to the light of the Son.

We long for our calling.

Sometimes freedom looks like a sudden changing of our future in one single instant. Sometimes freedom looks like that phone call you were waiting for from that place of second chances.

It’s time to choose our future.

¹⁴ Pharaoh sent for Joseph at once, and he was quickly brought from the prison. After he shaved and changed his clothes, he went in and stood before Pharaoh. ¹⁵ Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I had a dream last night, and no one here can tell me what it means. But I have heard that when you hear about a dream you can interpret it.”

The world goes silent with hushed expectation- they are all watching us now.

This is the opportunity for grace and honor. Our response becomes the turning point.

¹⁶ “It is beyond my power to do this,” Joseph replied. “But God can tell you what it means and set you at ease.”

¹⁷ So Pharaoh told Joseph his dream.

My brother, this is your moment to shine and be seen. Here it the moment when it becomes possible to choose our victory.

We are prepared because we have waited obediently for this moment for a lifetime.

We have been refined for such an unforeseen opportunity as this.

²⁵ Joseph responded, “Pharaoh’s dreams mean God is telling Pharaoh in advance what he is about to do.

All the hoping and longing, the years of captivity, it all comes down to an abundant torrent of persuasive words pouring forth from a heart refined by resignation, imprisonment and a long season of desert wandering.

And the words do come, because they have been provided by the Author of our story, inspired by pain and lifted up in full surrender to Him.

We surrender to our divinity.

We speak what we have seen- God gives visions to his captive children in order to set them free.

²⁸ “This will happen just as I have described it, for God has revealed to Pharaoh in advance what he is about to do. ²⁹ There will be seven years of famine so great that all the prosperity will be forgotten in Egypt. Famine will destroy the land. ³¹ This famine will be so severe that even the memory of the good years will be erased. ³² These events have been decreed by God, and he will soon make them happen.”

Without knowing, these words will pave the way for victory and mark the road to freedom. We foretell our future through the fortune of our innocence.

Our words have been prophetic in ways we never knew- this is God’s magic and His wise counsel to our soul.

³³ “Therefore, Pharaoh should find an intelligent and wise man and put him in charge of the entire land of Egypt. ³⁶ That way there will be enough to eat when the seven years of famine come to the land of Egypt. Otherwise this famine will destroy the land.”

My brother had no idea that his abundant outpouring of words would foretell not only the fate of the kingdom, but his own victory. We did not know that our abundant persuasion would reveal new visions.

By his own words of fortune, Joseph chose his future.

After a lifetime of servitude to captivity, his words are blessed by God to set him in a position far above his wildest dreams.

This is the place of second chances.

³⁷ Joseph’s suggestions were well received by Pharaoh and his officials.³⁸ So Pharaoh asked his officials, “Can we find anyone else like this man so obviously filled with the spirit of God?” ³⁹ Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has revealed the meaning of the dreams to you, clearly no one else is as intelligent or wise as you are. ⁴⁰ You will be in charge of my court, and all my people will take orders from you. Only I, sitting on my throne, will have a rank higher than yours.”

This is the breakthrough.

Joseph was once the ignorant kid who said stupid things to his brothers because of his emotional immaturity and ridiculous dreams. And after 20 years of hard-earned wisdom and reconditioning, this is the moment when all the suffering begins to make sense.

My brother and I will bloom where we are planted, here is this desert of captivity.

Who are we becoming? Are we choosing a lifetime of scarcity and bitterness, or a lifestyle of grace and trust in the promises of our King?

This is when the pain of the past bears the fruit of the future.

⁴¹ Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I hereby put you in charge of the entire land of Egypt.” ⁴² Then Pharaoh removed his signet ring from his hand and placed it on Joseph’s finger. He dressed him in fine linen clothing and hung a gold chain around his neck. ⁴³ Then he had Joseph ride in the chariot reserved for his second-in-command. And wherever Joseph went, the command was shouted, “Kneel down!” So Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of all Egypt. ⁴⁴ And Pharaoh said to him, “I am Pharaoh, but no one will lift a hand or foot in the entire land of Egypt without your approval.” ⁴⁶ He was thirty years old when he began serving in the court of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.

It didn’t have to be this way, but here we are, my brother and I.

All things can be redeemed in time, if we can endure the waiting place. We can choose to wait, we can choose to trust, we can choose to prophesy. We can choose our future.

But we must wait for God’s perfect timing.

We have continued to do the right thing, even when it produced the wrong results. We have bloomed where we were planted. We did more than we were asked, better than was expected. We changed what we could, we embraced what we could not.

We dwelt in our captivity with stubborn dignity.

Here we find ourselves with the chance to try again.

⁵⁰ During this time, before the first of the famine years, two sons were born to Joseph and his wife, Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, the priest of On. ⁵¹ Joseph named his older son Manasseh, for he said, “God has made me forget all my troubles and everyone in my father’s family.” ⁵² Joseph named his second son Ephraim, for he said, “God has made me fruitful in this land of my grief.”

Our healing came in an instant, like the coming of the dawn.

Because where God leads God provides.

Tears fell on open hands and bended knees as Joseph rescued Egypt from famine.

He bent low to bless the ones who once tread on his dreams.

And when the people cried out to Pharaoh for food, he told them, “Go to Joseph, and do whatever he tells you.”  ⁵⁷ And people from all around came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph because the famine was severe throughout the world.

My kids had to learn something simple that I am grappling with this week.

Blessing requires waiting.

God, this is so hard.

“Don’t freak out over delays” said my pastor last Sunday.

Did you know I have a new church family now? This is my victory, my blessing, my hope.

This is a church of second chances- it’s the first letter of their name. I will hold them to it.

I waited an eternity and a lifetime and have been prepared for this opportunity.

Yes, we must pause and be quiet, because surrender to freedom usually happens in captivity- the captivity of the unknown.

So this week I am waiting for a phone call. Sit with me here as I wait for the words I need to hear.

And God speaks in the quiet while I pray on bended knee:

“My Daughter, I not only see you in every moment of every day, I am with you in all of it. You are never alone. I want to help you accept and receive love from me in such a great abundance that it gives you the power to become who you already are in your soul. I have chosen a future for you that is as great and beautiful as your brother Joseph. I know how you have been hurt and how you have hurt yourself and others. I cover all of it with grace and redeem every tear. I can repurpose each piece of shame and grief and use it for my glory and your honor. I have all the time in the world to sit beside you and listen to your story. Tell me all of it and I will help you write the next chapter. I love you. You are my dearest beloved. You are mine.”

Last Sunday, in addition to the destruction of toys, I heard a sermon at church which resonated in a profound way with my place along the journey.

Pastor Rick said, “Wait for God’s perfect timing. God always gives his best to those who leave the choice to Him.”

But God, I want to choose my future now.

“Pause and be quiet. You are most likely to hear the Holy Spirit when You are relaxed.”

Pastor Rick, God knows this is hard for me. So keep preaching it, brother. You are my new pastor, now, so keep preaching the hard things. I’m listening.

After the service, I slunk away to blog in repentance.

What do you do when you realize that you are striving for control? Well, admit you are in prison, for one thing. This could be a dog house, a dining room chair, a blog or a phone call- anything can hold you captive when you strive.

My brother Joseph joins me here, where he has been waiting for deliverance for quite some time. He and I are both searching for peace and purpose here in the waiting place. We are waiting to be called.

As my ancestors in Scripture have chosen their futures, so I am preparing to choose mine.

He is in the waiting. He is our second chance.

His Kingdom is our inheritance, our birthright and our future.

He is calling us out of captivity. Jesus is calling.

Jesus, thank you for a new church of second chances.

Amen and amen.

Rebecca

~*~

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