Is Your Purpose on Backorder?
How to act while waiting for your purpose to be being fulfilled.
Imagine this scene:
After ordering her new sofa online, the woman waited and waited for its delivery. Growing tired of the wait, she called the company inquiring about her order. After a few minutes of checking on the lady’s order, the person on the other end of the phone said, “I’m sorry, but your sofa is on back order, and it will be another six months before it is delivered.” Frustrated, the woman screamed into the phone, “Cancel my order; that is too long to wait!”
Though an imaginary scene, it serves as an example of a characteristic many of us exhibit – impatience. We are not programmed to wait! And yet, the Bible tells us that patience is a fruit of the spirit. “But the fruit of the Spirit (the result of His presence within us) is love (unselfish concern for others), joy, (inner) peace, patience (not the ability to wait, but how we act while waiting), kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23 AMP).
Did you take notice how the Amplified Bible describes patience? Patience is not the ability to wait, but how we act while waiting. I have to confess that waiting on one specific purpose to be fulfilled in my life is one thing that, shall we say, “gets my goat” more than anything else. To emphasize that phrase, words like irritates, discourages, exasperates, bugs me come to my mind.
Don’t get me wrong; there are several areas where I believe I have fulfilled God’s purpose in different seasons of my life. However, there is this one that is on back order, according to my assessment of it, and that is when impatience kicks in. God has had to encourage me time and time again concerning this back order. He reminds me of people in the Bible who had a purpose to fulfill and sometimes they had to wait years for it to manifest.
Take a look at two of my favorites who I feel are a part of my family after studying their lives so many times over the years and how they reacted to their delayed purpose being fulfilled.
Abraham and Sarah: Abraham was 75 years old when God gave him the promise that a son would be born through his barren wife, Sarah. However, the time of the birth didn’t take place until Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90. Do the math. Twenty-five years of waiting. We know that there was a time Abraham and Sarah got impatient and tried to help God out by providing Sarah’s handmaid, Hagar, as a surrogate mother for the child God had promised, thus causing untold problems. However, Abraham had a heart change and trusted God to keep the promise for the remainder of the time.
Moses, Caleb and Joshua – Waiting in the Wilderness: Moses had the responsibility of leading God’s people out of Egypt where they had been slaves and bringing them to the Promise Land. However, after ten of the twelve spies who scouted out the Promised Land said that they would not be able to take it, all of the Israelites ended up on a forty-year detour in the wilderness and didn’t make it because of their lack of faith in God except Joshua and Caleb. They did not rebel against the Lord, nor place their trust in man, but remained loyal to God and made it into the Promise Land.
Why are some purposes put on back order? I personally believe it is for three reasons: (1) Most important is so that the appointed time when God will receive the most glory. (2) To refine our heart. (3) Sometimes the wait is because the purpose is connected to another person, and we have to wander around in the wilderness with them like Joshua and Caleb had to do.
And with that, I wait for my back order to be filled. Thank you, Lord, for being patient with me in the midst of my impatience.
How does the imaginary story of waiting for a back order relate to you in regard to having patience for a God-given purpose in your life to be fulfilled?
List ways you might better deal with waiting in order to live out your purpose.
What scripture, besides Galatians 5:22-23, do you believe will help you in the waiting time of fulfilling a specific purpose in your life?
But the fruit of the Spirit (the result of His presence within us) is love (unselfish concern for others), joy, (inner) peace, patience (not the ability to wait, but how we act while waiting), kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23 AMP)
Martha Bush
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