Moving Forward in Faith and Waiting on God

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Dear friends,

Moving forward in faith and waiting on God. I have often found these things hard to reconcile in my mind. Do we move forward in faith or wait on God and His timing? I have friends and colleagues who live in very difficult situations, and I have watched and learned from them about both waiting and moving forward.

In one place in Ethiopia there is a vision for a large church building, a building that will seat over 1,000 people. This area in Ethiopia has seen a lot of conflict over the years so it has not been able to develop economically like other places in Ethiopia. Many people are living day to day at or below the poverty level. That all sounds very discouraging, doesn’t it? And yet people are joyfully going to church, laughing with their families and friends and just going about life. In this place a pastor had a dream of this large church building and, I will admit, I thought he was dreaming. Yet every time I visit there, the building process has continued and there is a shape to the church now so you can actually see what it will look like someday. Will it be finished this year or even in the next 5 years? I don’t know. What I do know is that they are moving forward in faith that this church will be built, and they are waiting on God’s timing for the funds for each step.

[ngg src="galleries" ids="1242" display="pro_horizontal_filmstrip" show_captions="1"]In South Sudan life is difficult. The economic situation is bad. In two months, the exchange rate went from 1,700 South Sudanese Pounds (SSP) to 1 U.S. Dollar (USD) to 3,500 SSP to 1 USD and then down to 2,800 SSP to 1 USD. The cost of goods fluctuates daily but people’s pay does not keep up with this kind of inflation. Do you wait on God, or do you move forward? You move forward in faith that God will help you provide for your family. You still need to do the work of planting a field and then you wait for the rain to come and the crops to grow. There are communities that have moved forward in faith working towards peace within their community by waiting for the right time and person to come and walk with them. In the waiting time, they have identified the people who need to come to the table to be a part of the conversation.

I still struggle with the idea of waiting on God because it sounds to me like we are just sitting back and waiting for God to do something. But “sitting back” is not what we are supposed to do. We are supposed to be prepared, which means while we wait, we also need to be preparing to do what God wants. In Matthew 25, we are told of the maidens waiting for the bridegroom to come. Some waited without being prepared so they missed the bridegroom. We are also told of the talents that a master gave to three of his servants and how two of them waited for the master’s return by increasing the number of talents they had received while one did nothing with what he had received.

While we wait on God, we need to be prepared for whatever He calls us to do because He is already doing something. If we are to build a church, then we need to be prepared with the plans for the church. If we are to reconcile with our brother or sister, we need to make things right within ourselves. If we are to plant a field, we need to prepare the field and buy seed.

Thank you for your prayers for me as I travel and for the work that I do. Please continue to pray for peace in the Horn of Africa, for relief from flooding, malaria and conflict and know that we here in the USA are being prayed for by our friends in Africa.

Sharon