It’s a pleasure to have devotional thoughts from Amy Yohe this week! You can learn more about her on the contributors page.
Did you wonder if there’s a mistake in that title? Aren’t we seeking to walk by faith, live by faith, and pursue Christ likeness by faith? Isn’t the Christian’s existence to be an active pursuit of Christ likeness, not a passive waiting game? Maybe you have found as I have that there can be seasons of waiting mingled with the busyness of our earthly existence. As you look back at God‘s work in you in the past year, were there times that you felt awkwardly on pause while everything else swirled around you?
In seasons of waiting, when some aspect of life seems strangely on pause, we can wait by faith. Before I realized how challenging 2024 would be, God graciously caused a random (not really) verse to jump out during a January church service, and I clung to it like a lifeline throughout the year. The verse was I Corinthians 15:58, and I learned first that in waiting I need to be steadfast and unmovable.
While there are certainly nuanced differences between those words, I’ve gripped onto them as one and the same, a necessary repetition of the same quality I need to possess and deepen during this season. While I’m waiting, I need to be faithful and stable. This is not a time to pause my pursuit of Christ, not a time to neglect what’s been entrusted to me, not a time to slip and lose spiritual ground. Despite the seeming silence that accompanies waiting, I need to “be still and know“ that God is still God, still good, and still working for “his own glory and my best good.”
As we listen in the quiet and rest in the promises, we will develop patience and endurance, learning to trust what we know, not what we feel. I’ll leave you to develop the concepts of steadfast and unmovable further, but let’s conclude this aspect of waiting by faith with two quotes from my 2024 sermon notes journal.(Disclaimer: I tend to jot down an edited version of what I hear.) “When your world feels on pause, trust what was last revealed to you.” “Before we can move forward in faith, we must learn to stand still in faith.” Be steadfast, unmovable.
I held tightly to this challenge the entire year and shared it as I had opportunity. Just before the end of the year, a friend asked what verse I would cling to in the coming year. Off the cuff I said that I would probably need the same verse again. I pondered on that thought throughout the holidays and came to understand that I had only focused on the first part of the verse in 2024. There is a whole other aspect that I need.
In seasons of waiting for direction, for change, for answers to prayer, in addition to being faithful and stable, God intends for me to abound. I’m not to be stagnant, I’m to grow, to thrive. I’m not to only rest in God‘s promises, but also to delight in who God is, to allow his joy to be my strength. In the quietness of waiting, the noise of life is turned down, and I can listen intently in the quietness.
As I listen, the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit can be heard. As I receive his teaching, I will abound with the fruits of “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.” Nourished by truth and producing the fruit of the spirit, I can and will be ready to abound in the work of the Lord. This work takes place quietly in seasons of waiting, but those quiet seasons are often preparing us for the next active season of more actively walking by faith.
In seasons of waiting for further direction, for answer to prayer, we can develop patience and endurance that will bolster our faith and give us courage in receiving direction. Like Esther we can seek God‘s will and abound in confidence that he can be trusted with our future. And in that season of waiting, we will become who we need to be for the next season so we too can be ready “for such a time as this”!
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