How long do I have to be good? How long do I have to listen? How long before I can get what I want? How long…….

Do you remember your children asking these questions? Or perhaps you remember asking your parents or teachers these questions yourself. They seem such childish questions, don’t they?  I remember my boys badgering me for one thing or another asking, “how long, Mommy?” I remember how annoyed I would get. I usually had very good reasons for them to wait. Sometimes a reward was directly tied to their obedience. Sometimes I was trying to teach them something as they waited. Children have a hard time trying to be patient. They don’t understand why they can’t just have it now or do it now.

If we’re honest…aren’t we just like our children in many ways when we go to our Heavenly Father in prayer? Father, I’ve been obedient for a month, a year, 10 years….30 years. Won’t you heal me? Won’t you heal my marriage? Won’t you take this addiction from me? Won’t you get my kids back for me? The list goes on and on.  So what is the answer? How long God…how long? I think God says to us, “As long as it takes, but in the meantime…trust Me, walk in obedience daily, believe in who I am and what I can do, what My Word says I can do. Take this time to learn from Me.”

Psalm 37:3-7 “Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday. Rest in Him, and wait patiently for Him.”

These few short verses are full of direction for us and it gives us a great promise from the Lord. We are to trust in Him, delight in Him and commit our way to Him. The Lord is faithful and we are to fill ourselves with His faithfulness. The way to do that is to know His character and the way to know His character is to be in His Word because it’s all in there. What is His promise to us if we do this? “He shall give you the desires of your heart.” Of course that doesn’t mean God is our personal magic Genie, but if we know His word we will know if our petitions are in line with His will for our lives. However, our waiting on the Lord doesn’t mean we just sit back on our Lazyboy with our feet up and wait for God to answer our prayers. Do is an action word and there is a part that we must play in the answer to prayer. The Lord tells us to do good; As we do good we are to rest in Him and wait patiently for His answer. I don’t know about you but I’m thinking, “WOW Lord, do you really want to give me the desires of my heart? That is almost too much for me to take in.”

God’s desire is for us to do good not for what we can get out of it though, but to do good because of our love for Him. Then trusting in Him, delighting in Him and committing our way to Him should be a piece of cake!

Mary Ann

MaryAnn and John Kiernan have been married for 38 years, have 2 married sons and are the proud grandparents of three grandsons and two granddaughters and one grandchild on the way! She serves at America’s Keswick as a Biblical Counselor and also as Intake Coordinator for the Colony of Mercy. Her life verse is Romans 8:28.