Most of us know how to ask God for what we want. Philippians 4:6(NLT) tells us, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” Through earnest prayer, we tell Heavenly Father what we need, but many of us have difficulty when it comes to waiting on His divine timing. A need is defined as something we perceive to be essential and very important to our well-being, and sometimes we will let the need make us do exactly what God told us not to do; we become anxious. When it looks to us that our prayer hasn’t been answered, some of us will try different strategies and tactics to speed up the process. As it relates to dating and marriage, being anxious and trying to force things to work can leave an opening for the devil to make things worse. This is not what Heavenly Father wants for us. Instead, He always wants us to learn to approach this area of our lives from the standpoint of spiritual growth and maturity in Christ.
Society has taught us many things that have negative consequences. One of them is adopting the idea that everything must be done quicker. We want fast results, or else we get impatient. In truth, it is impossible to rush God. We don’t know the span of time between Adam’s creation and the first couple’s fall from holiness through disobedience, but we can imagine that they enjoyed the bliss of paradise for a very long time. So much so, that they began to take it for granted. It was actually after their disobedience that measuring the passage of time came into play. As we study the Bible, it becomes overwhelmingly clear that God doesn’t rush things. He didn’t rush the birth of our Redeemer after Adam and Eve messed up, and He didn’t bring Christ to the earth as a fully-grown man, able to immediately begin his mission. Jesus Christ was introduced to the earth as a child that was born like all the rest of us. He had to grow and mature into a man, and when he was ready, he began the assignment that the Father had given him. This is a very basic pattern, and it applies to us even today. We receive the blessing and the responsibility when we are spiritually prepared to manage, maintain, and minister to it.
God does not rush us into spiritual maturity. Our preference is to speed up the process of receiving blessings in order to get quicker results, but life will not allow us to bypass God’s process. When Jesus ministered healing to people, the Word says he would sometimes tell them, “Your faith has made you whole.” They had to come to a place where they were fully persuaded in him and believed in his love and compassion to heal them. Because we have learned to rely so much on self-effort, and we’ve developed the habit pattern of taking matters into our own hands, we have a habit of always leaning on our own understanding. God tells us not to do this in Proverbs 3:5, because leaning on self-effort will undermine our faith. We have to change this. Instead of succumbing to impatience and unrest, we must ask God to lead us through His Holy Spirit and humble ourselves to learn what He desires to teach us.
Understand that God doesn’t take anything about your life lightly. He doesn’t want you investing your resources of time and emotions into something that isn’t going to elevate you spiritually and aid your relationship with Him. So, when it comes to the matters of your heart and how you take care of it, you have to be confident that what God has for you, is for you. You must make sure you’re not entertaining a set-up from the devil. We cannot do anything without hearing from the Lord. We cannot make decisions and choices that do not follow what He desires. Unless we have a stance that obeys that kind of standard, we do not have a fully persuaded faith. Try as we might to get around this truth, we will find that it will prevail every time.
At every corner, you should be convinced that God desires you to be blessed in your life with someone that honors Him and treasures you. This is a man that treats strangers kindly and is very clearly compassionate and caring towards you. He’s respectful to his parents and family, and if he has children, he’s an active participant in their lives. All of these things make a difference. They speak to his character and how he will likely be towards you and your family in the future. In and of ourselves, we can’t truly know if someone is really this caliber of person, but the Holy Spirit knows, and we should always follow the Spirit’s guidance.
Romans 8:28(NLT) says, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” God knows our prayers, and we must leave it to Him to answer them. He knows exactly how to put everything together so that our relationships blossom in accordance with the spiritual maturity we have gained. If He tells us there is more growing that we need to do, we must be attentive to listen for His directions. Because He will also tell us what we need to surrender, and what we need to embrace in order that our faith is where it needs to be to partner. Know with absolute certainty that when you are spiritually prepared in your heart and mind to receive blessings, Heavenly Father will not allow anything to stand in the way of you having what you’ve prayed to receive.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“God Will Put It All Together ” written by Kim Times, edited by Reverend Fran Mack for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2020. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.