Hoping for so much more

My friend Rachel is on The World Race right now, an 11 month mission's trip that will take her and her team to 11 different countries around the world. She's been blogging about her experiences in Australia, the first country on their route. You can read her posts here.

What she most recently wrote really struck me. In this season of my life, I've been doing a lot of waiting on God. Hoping and praying for things to change can be very frustrating if your expectations aren't from God. Rachel writes about wanting to be close to God, hearing His voice and being holy. Her expectations were that those things would come naturally on the race, but she's found that there's more to it than just being on a mission's trip. She writes:

"I am learning that the Lord can change things in the blink of an eye but He most often chooses to work things out gradually. That is as much his will as miraculous signs and wonders. I think the Lord is showing me that it takes time and patience for these things to come. Not only patience but an expectant, hopeful, Christ centered patience that puts Him at the forefront of things and not the blessing or hoped outcome of what we are waiting for. I was reading in my commentary about hope in Romans 5.

It said, Hope is not an uncertain, wishful thought but an assurance of something not yet fully experienced but guaranteed here and now by the love of God that the Holy Spirit pours into believers' hearts.

That is the kind of hope I am talking about. I was listening to a sermon today from The Village Church and the pastor Matt Chandler said something very interesting. He said religion seeks out God's blessings..., but the Gospel seeks out God. The only blessing a true follower of Christ should seek is the presence of God. I think I am learning that I haven't been desiring the presence of God solely. I have been desiring other secondary things like songs or even ministry opportunities, which are both good things if they a birthed out of a heart that is seeking Christ and Him alone."

I am so impatient for change sometimes. I needed to hear what Rachel had to say today. I get so wrapped up in what is going on with me, and what I have to do that I forget to let God into it all. I'll stop and pray at different times during the day, but I forget that He wants to walk through all of it with me. I am so tired. I have been working hard to hold things together, and I am so tired. I go to the Lord when I'm desperate, when I'm struggling, when I'm frustrated, when I'm sad, and when I'm lonely. But then I go back to relying on myself once those feelings have passed. I want to start desiring His presence in my life continually, not just in the hard times.