Waiting on God: it Hurts Good

4+ years ago, I met a beautiful woman and I sensed God speak to me about her. What I heard, what I concluded it meant and what is playing out today can best be described as a relationship between a cat, a dog and a big mouse.

What I heard: this is the one.

What I concluded: she is my wife.

What is playing out: she is engaged to another man.

The stupid thing from a logical perspective is that is that I am still waiting. Not on her to change her mind but for God to reconcile what He said, with what she meant, and how my life ought to play out.

The journey of unrelying on logic is a very daunting one because there is no playbook for it. Today at church, one of the men I respect a lot preached on God speaks. He covered some amazing principles and made sure to highlight the fact that it is not a formula you follow because it is specific to you and your situation.

Moses listened to God, he heard Him, interpreted His instruction beautifully but once he applied General wisdom when specific circumstantial directive was present. It cost him the culmination of his life’s greatest work- entering the promise land.

The journey of a Christian seeking to follow God. Seeking to unrely on logic as default but on the specific and general word, directive and instruction of God can be confusing, convoluted, annoying, painful yet fulfilling.

I feel like a dog waiting for his master to come home from work. Except it’s been dawn and multiple sunsets have come and gone. I have enough food in the house to eat while I wait but I don’t Know what to do with this feeling of wasting away. My master didn’t tell me when he will be back home to give me the next directive. I was making amazing progress in listening and reacting to His commands but this hiatus is perplexing. It feels like that hug he gave me when he left the house was his way of telling me that he will be gone awhile. But he didn’t categorically tell me he was gonna be gone indefinitely! How can I depend on a master that isn’t here to throw that bouncy ball for me to catch? How can I rely on a master that won’t snap his fingers when I am eating too much food since it needs to last me till he returns? How can I rely on a master who feels ignorant of my needs- for crying out loud, I am a German Shepherd that needs to run out his energy or go on a DAILY walks!

What I want is not heard, acknowledged, seen and certainly not met. And that is exactly the point.

My master is training me to rely on Him. To rely on Him is to not be moved, and driven by my needs and wants and dreams. To rely on Him is to patiently desire to be who He made me to be in order to fulfil His will.

There are many different ways of interpreting what I know. When I met that beautiful woman, and she said this is the one. Maybe:

• This is the one meant, this is the woman I want to use for this season of your life to reveal your sexist, masochist, narcissist tendencies.
• This is the one to help you see that your decisions are governed by logic and I — your Almighty God- has no consideration in your decisions besides being informed of what you will do and communicating an expectation of how you need me to come through so that your will is done.
• This is the one to help you realize how unfit you are to love and be in union with another being.
• This is the one to help you learn what it means to serve others and enjoy it.
• This is the one to open your eyes to the fact that you can have a great list of what a compatible woman must looks like but first recognizing that you don’t even know who you are and thus makes your list a farce.
• This is the one to help you reconcile the lies you believe about relating with women and the degree to which they have enslaved your reality.

Has she been the one? Oh yes! Not in the ways that I expected, not in the ways I want, not in the ways that have been fun or enjoyable. But in God’s ever fascinating way, He has been true and I haven’t been paying attention.

It’s easy for me to beat myself up because the past two years, what I want is to jump very quickly to another beautiful woman and give her my soul. Replace the hurt and quicken the learning process. Plug the hole in my heart with a substitute to the God pursuing me to fill me up but in His time and timing.

These two years have felt equally like a waste of time and the most well spent 2 years of my life. This is how God works, this is the wisdom He operates in. My emotions are deeply entrenched in the present whereas my spirit in not bounded by time. There is a conflict raging between the two and it is okay.

It is okay to feel like I am wasting away, it is okay to want more, it is okay to feel impatient, it is even okay to wanna be a jealous. What is not okay is to quit trusting and waiting like a dog on His next directive. What is not okay is to run away from the house where all my provisions are divinely met. What is not okay is returning to my logic for directive.

Because He makes all things beautiful in His time.

She is my wife.

The danger then was interpreting and concluding on what God wants to do based on my circumstances and framework for choice. In my framework, the first woman that I date officially is gonna be my wife. Nevermind that, it wasn’t God’s framework for decision for me.

Even now, what I desire is to close the chapter and say, she is engaged therefore it is now officially done. Wouldn’t that be the same exact framework, interpreting His wisdom through my circumstances and my framework.

God has called us not to guess but to seek His directive and wait for His next command. God wants our choices to rely step after step on Him like a soldier in a marching command prepared to go left or right but solely reliant on the utterances of the commander for what comes next.

I’m not sitting around praying for my ex to return and I certainly am not advocating for people to wait on married women to get a divorce because they “heard.” What I am saying is that my will must be surrendered to His will especially in the areas that probably will hurt the most.

Abraham’s directive was to offer his only son as a sacrifice. My ex returning will be a very traumatic and painful experience but the mere fact that it will be doesn’t mean that I then close it as an option because it makes me feel sane today. The lesson and reminder here is that I am not in control. My choices must be sacrificed at the alter of the wisdom of the man who knows no time.

She is engaged to another man.

Lessons 1 & 2 has me at a place where I am genuinely thrilled that my ex has found a man made for her. I see things I couldn’t be for her in the man she has chosen to love.

I am still reminded of the lessons, and my failures as a man but the emotions of those lessons do not cloud the delight that God’s will doesn’t require more of me that my obedience. It is He who works through people to unwrap His micro and macro will for His people.

If my ex doesn’t see our incompatibility, God would not have a single vessel to use in this season of my life nor would I be ready to meet the woman He has been preparing me for.

The message at church resonated so deeply with me that I felt it needful you drag my pain through to encourage one person out there in the waiting.

God is God. He speaks, He arrives, He does in His time. Be a wise virgin and wait, but wait in wisdom.