Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
I am learning how very selfish I am. How my heart is void of love towards other people. Without care I run around attempting to accomplish the many goals I have lined up for myself and rarely stop to take a breath and think about anything, much less others. I place myself first, in front, ahead of, and before anyone else almost all the time.
I find this ugliness never more true than when I am waiting on God. That sounds horrible. If I am waiting on God, then I should be seeking Him and waiting for Him to reveal to me His path, selfishness has no place there. It’s true for me that I am most selfish when I’m waiting. It may be that I am so preoccupied with whatever that glorious thing or event to happen that I build my entire life around waiting for it. Planning for it. Thinking about it. Praying about it. Dreaming about it. When what I’m planning for isn’t even a reality yet.
I’m builing my life around something that doesn’t exist in the present moment. It takes up my time, my thoughts, my emotions, and my heart and I become so fully wrapped around it that I can no longer see everyone and everything around me. This is one of the traps I fall into most of the time. Beacuse I am waiting on God to move, nothing and no one else matters nearly as much. How selfish.
What the Lord is calling me to do is to love in the waiting. To see the people around me and to simply love them for who they are. To know that He who has promised is faithful, and not to invest my whole self into something that is not reality yet, but rather invest into those who are. Loving them self-sacrificially and seeking to meet their needs above my own. Constantly looking away from myself and seeing the things God will have me do right now. Dying to self all day every day.
I am old enough to know that I make a mess of things when I decide I can put my hands in the mix and try to accomplish these goals with even the best of intentions.
I am humbled to know that I can’t even simply love without the greatest Lover of all time giving me the grace and the power to do so.
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January 13, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Faith
I came across your blog via Sarah Markley’s page… I don’t know what you’re “waiting” for, but can definitely relate to how consuming it can be. Hubby and I recently adopted and the PAIN of waiting is one of the harde things we have ever endured. Sometimes we have to be Selfish to become selfless. We have to focus on ourselves for a time to really understand ourselves and see God working in our own lives. Perhaps God is using this time of “waiting” to teach you more about you and your relationships. (I know it did for us.) I guess having come through the other side of what felt like an un-ending WAIT for our heart’s greatest desire (to have the most amazing blessings) gives me a different perspective. BUT. You never forget what you felt during your own personal “wait” to get to that point of joy and then it all makes sense. It’s not always an easy road and we had a lot of heartache along the way, but in the end, God blessed us in ways we could not even imagine for ourselves.
GOOD LUCK in your journey. 
January 15, 2010 at 12:05 am
faithtruth
Thank you! Like the name by the way
Adoption is something on my heart as well and something I look to do in the future. I can completely agree with you in your time of waiting and all that God did through it. Refining is not usually a pleasant process, but the end result is worth the journey:)