How much I have hated to wait for anything

One thing that I have struggled with these past months is not having a position or a place in ministry. This isn’t so much as not being a pastor but not being able to teach God’s word to people outside my family in a larger group gathering. Many times I have been tempted to start a church in my basement because I needed to teach (funny huh?). This time of waiting on the Lord has been hard but has been so good. God has been refining me these past months. 

Last month, I had the privilege to spend the weekend in Las Vegas and soak up time and cookies with the Gotthardt family. If their name sounds familiar it is because Paul Gotthardt has become a mentor in my life through this last year. One evening Paul asked me if I was okay with God taking His time in this journey. He then pointed me to chapter 2 of Miles Stanford’s book “The Complete Green Letters”. We had had this discussion before and as before I answered yes really meaning no. I was tired of waiting and felt ready to take the step to our next place in this journey. Well, today things are different. How great a change that has happened in a month.

Today while reading that same chapter 2, this statement attacked my mind

after listing about 15 men like D.L. Moody, Andrew Murray and Chapman he says this) “The average for these was fifteen years after they entered their life work before they began to know the Lord Jesus as their Life, and ceased trying to work for Him and began allowing Him to be their All in all and do His work through them.”

Oh how I hate waiting. I think this is one of the reasons I love Chipotle and Chick-Fil-A so much; because I don’t have to wait long to get what I want. In this life I want to become what Christ is doing in me. I want to mature, I want to lead a congregation to love Christ. I don’t want to sit on the sidelines, however fruit takes time. How I have fought God impatiently and how long-suffering He has been with me. Today I am beginning to see why He has me waiting. He is maturing me and producing mature fruit in me to bear. Vance Pitman once said to me “Shawn, you will not take anyone where you have not been. Enjoy and remember what God is taking you through, He is doing it for the sake of the people you will lead later”. 

I have to admit that our time in Hawaii grew me up. It broke my self-dependency and made me run to Christ. Today, that desperation and dependency for Christ is growing. I feel as if I am finally beginning to get it and relying only on Christ for anything to happen. I have not arrived but feel as if the journey just got juicy. Funny thing, I started my first pastoral position 15 years ago.


Christian, what things are you hoping for and God isn’t giving you? Could it be that He is taking His time in you to produce what kind of fruit He wants you to bear in maturity. Good tasty fruit takes time. It has to weather the storms of life and depend on the vine to give it life and grow it. Mature fruit doesn’t just happen to a immature branch or it would break that branch and the branch would become useless or would drop the fruit too early. Let’s wait on God together and realize that what God is doing is much better for us than what we want Him to do impatiently. I am thankful that God didn’t give me mature fruit last year at this time, it would have forever broken me and I wouldn’t be bearing the fruit He is growing in me today!. Thank you God that You are patient!

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