Hold your horses… and your cow
Growing up I remember being told two phrases over and over … “Hold your horses” and “You’re getting too big for your britches.” Both are popular sayings in most southern families. And neither are super flattering. I’ve always been too grown for my own good. I mean what high schooler gets grounded for watching C-SPAN?!?
Twice… (I’m both embarrassed and pleased with this)
My mother has jokingly said a few times that I was born 30 years old and I’ve just aged from there. So I’m actually like 59. Other people I meet tell me I have an “old soul.” I’m not mad at that description. But being too big for my britches has always gotten me in trouble. My sassiness often gets the best of me. So does my impatience. Neither trait makes me a good follower of Christ.
I can’t think of a single person that likes to wait. I can’t think of a single individual that enjoys standing in line or waiting in a doctor’s office all afternoon. I’ve never met anyone that says “Boy this line we’re standing in at the Walmart, that we’ve been standing in for 15 minutes because only 2 and a half registers are open, this line is so much fun!” If you know people that love to wait, please send them to me so I can learn their magical ways. Because I am so NOT that person. At all. Patience is a virtue that I struggle with – daily. We like to move fast. To get to our destination quickly. Speeding. Because we always have more things to do.
I do know some people that handle waiting better than others. Who have a really good handle on that pesky virtue of patience. I’m not one of them either. But still I don’t know anyone that likes to wait! I think women especially aren’t good at waiting because we’re caretakers. We’re doers. When we see a need in our family or with our friends we tend to want to take action. Because we want to take care of others and ourselves.
But unfortunately waiting is a huge part of our lives. And one that I think we don’t handle very well. Thankfully, however, most of our waiting is seasonal. It’s only for a specific amount of time. But even “waiting seasons” vary in length. Some of us may see an end in sight for our time of waiting. Some may have a very long season of waiting. And for others the waiting season may never end here on this earth. But at one point or another each of us will face a season of waiting.
And I don’t think we wait well.
I think it’s during these times of waiting that the devil comes after us the hardest. Because we’re easy targets. We’re extra emotional during times of waiting. We experience all the emotions. We often begin our season of waiting angry at the initial situation. We’re angry at the problem or the person that caused us to wait in the first place. Then we get angrier and more aggravated that we’re having to wait. Waiting also gives us time to become worried and anxious. We become negatively imaginative. While we wait we let our minds run in 100 different directions and all of them are bad. We’re thinking up the worst possible scenarios. All the bad things that could happen and none of them are taking us to good places. We don’t wait well. And the devil knows it. He knows we’re weaker during our times of waiting and he attacks us aggressively. He turns all of those emotions against us and causes us to doubt. To doubt ourselves and our loved ones. And most importantly – to doubt God.
I’m in a pretty obvious season of waiting. And some days It’s. The. Worst. Others days I’m kind of ok. Some weeks It’s. The. Worst. Other weeks I’m handling it pretty well. There have been very few weeks when I’ve handled the waiting amazingly. Maybe none. I’m sure there have to be a few – if you close your eyes and look really hard. After so many bad weeks something made me realize I can’t keep living in this depressed state of waiting. I have to be active in getting myself to a better place of waiting. I can’t keep letting the devil win. I can’t keep letting the devil attack me and lead me down paths away from God.
So what do we do? What do we do while we’re waiting? How do we fight our own emotions and fight the devil. How do we handle waiting in a good way – in a godly way? Look Exodus 32. Read all of it real quick. Here we have a clear story of how NOT to wait.
In Exodus 32, we have the story of the golden calf. The Israelites demand Aaron must create them new gods because “Moses delayed to come down from the mountain.” Aaron thought this was a great idea and had the perfect plan to execute. He took all the gold from their ears and threw it into the fire and out jumped… a cow. I’m sorry Aaron you made a what for me worship? I find that crazy. Sadly humorous. That out of everything they could’ve chosen – Aaron made a cow? I get that at that time bull worship was a big thing for pagans. Which is how we assume the calf was most likely fashioned after a cow. But after I’ve just witnessed the ten plagues and the parting of the Red Sea, I feel like I’m going to want something more than a cow.
Since we have the whole story it’s easy for us to judge the Israelites. How silly they look creating a cow for a god. But we do the same thing. We get tired of waiting for God to answer our prayers. For God to answer our prayers in the exact way we ask. We lose faith just as quickly as the Israelites and decide taking care it ourselves would be better. We allow the devil to tell us God isn’t fighting for us. That God isn’t listening to us. We listen to the devil lie and we take if for truth. Because we’re weakened during our times of waiting. The Israelites took matters into their own hands. That’s what not to do. We don’t need to think we have a better game plan than God. The Israelites thought they had better answers. They got tired of waiting so they decided to act selfishly and quickly. They got anxious because Moses was gone for so long. They thought 40 days and 40 nights was too long for Moses to be gone. (Exodus 24:18) That he must have deserted them. Left them out to dry. So they decided to create new gods. Someone new to take care of them and praise since Moses and God forgot them.
The Israelites waited so wrong. In ALL the wrong ways. They tried to create their own answers to godly questions. And they did NOT do a good job at it! We will never be as good at planning as God. We will never create a life better than the one God has created and continues to create for us. Earthly answers cannot fill us like God answers. But still, like the Israelites, we try. And it gets us nowhere. Nowhere good for sure!
Failing to wait well cost the Israelites dearly. It cost them their people and their God. Chapter 33 discusses one major punishment, in my opinion it’s the worst one of all – God left them. Verses 3 and 4 say “Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people. When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned…” God was so angry he couldn’t continue on with them. That breaks my heart. To think that I’m upsetting God to the point that He has to leave me. Any length of time away from God is too long.
We can’t wait like the Israelites. We need to learn from their mistakes. Waiting doesn’t mean losing faith and taking it into our own hands. Waiting also doesn’t mean sitting around twiddling our thumbs. God wants active waiting. He wants purposeful waiting. He wants faithful waiting. He wants you to wait WITH Him. Because when we wait WITH Him, we’re no longer just waiting – we’re changing. Waiting WITH God allows us to transform. My best friend always tells me how she loves to see the transformation in Page and I during this season of waiting. She says that’s the one good thing we’ve got going for us during this weary time of waiting. She knows the end result will also be so worth it. But she’s so good at seeing the progress we’re making. That’s hard to see when you’re in it. I feel like I’m failing God most of the time. She’s a constant blessing to remind me I am making changes during this season of waiting. Though sometimes they’re incredibly small.
So while you’re waiting work on your relationship with God. Strengthen yourself in Him, so when you’re wait is over you’re ready for whatever comes next. You’ll be prepared to receive the godly answer. Even if that answer is no. Waiting WITH God means you’re in this WITH Him. And that’s a powerful thing. You’re talking with and listening to Him. Prayer and reading God’s word mean everything. Especially during a season of waiting. I know that’s the cookie cutter, Sunday school answer. But these two things are powerful. I feel like we’ve allowed these two things to become so cliche’ they’ve lost meaning. Oh you’re struggling? Read your Bible? Oh you’re having a difficult time at work? I’ll pray for you. It’s like we use prayer as a last resort, when in reality it’s THE best tool we have.
Spend time with Him. Read how others handled their wait time. We can read how Sarah handled her wait time for a baby. She didn’t really do so well either. I guess if we were 90 years old and someone told us we would give birth and raise a baby we would laugh behind the door too. Go read Sarah’s story tonight. Read how God heard her laugh at his promise. Read how he responded. “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” Read how God did keep his promise and Sarah and Abraham had a sweet baby boy. Reading real life stories like Sarah’s should give us hope that even the things we believe impossible are possible with God. We put human limitations on a limitless God. We do exactly what Sarah did. Read God’s word. Grow closer to him through prayer and bible study.
The second time I was grounded for watching C-SPAN I was supposed to be getting ready. We were going somewhere and I was supposed to be ready when mom was ready. And I wasn’t. I was too busy sitting around arguing with people on my TV. That’s the kind of waiting God doesn’t want. The sitting around kind. He wants the getting ready kind of waiting. I want my waiting to be more about growing closer to God than surviving the wait and receiving my answer.
So hold your horses and your cow. Cause God’s waiting with you.
Originally posted September 2017