Fear of the Future

What are you waiting for right now?

Are you waiting for the other shoe to drop? Are you waiting for the virus to show up? Are you waiting for a phone call? Are you waiting for a dream to be fulfilled? Are you waiting for a spouse, kids or grandkids? Are you waiting for something to change?

It appears to me that whatever it is that we’re waiting for is what dominates our thoughts and thus controls our perspective. Instead of enjoying the NOW and seeing the blessings that God provides each day, we worry, feel disappointed, act entitled, brew in resentment, or fear what is yet to be. We are forced to manipulate peace, numb our anxiety or be paralyzed in fear.

What if instead of waiting on those things that dominate our minds, we daily entrusted them to God. What if the only waiting we did was to wait for Him? What if EACH morning before we got out of bed, we acknowledged Him as King and entrusted Him with all the things we can’t control? What if we waited for a word (however big or small) from God and were “still” until He spoke?

How would that affect our perspective throughout the day? When I was waiting for a spouse (through my 20s and early 30s), that’s all I thought about and focused on. I couldn’t help it because it was what I had made most important to me. When we are waiting for something, everything else gets put on hold as we negotiate peace with our minds.

We miss so much.

But when we wait on God, there’s an unusual peace and stillness that permeates our reality and we can actually experience LIFE in our now…and our NOW is truly all that is real.

The Israelites spent 40 years in the desert. The only way they knew how to prepare for what was coming next was to look to God and follow Him. There were times they set up camp for only a few nights and then there were times they stayed for a much longer duration. When they didn’t choose to wait on God, they were left with no option but to spend their days riddled with anxiety and focused on a future that had yet to happen. When we do that, we tend to look at the future absent of God and that can only bring stress and fear.

The enemy steals our lives by trying to dictate what we focus on. I would encourage you, as I am purposing to do myself, to focus on waiting on God…

• for him to fulfill his promises,
• for him to speak,
• for him to move.

In the Meanwhile…

Remember, our God is good. He is the one who has given us life and we can only experience that life as we experience it in the present with Him. He is the “I Am.”

• May we all choose to look to and wait for only him.
• May we move when HE says to move.
• May we be still when He says, “be still.”
• May we trust that HE is navigating us (sometimes blindly) to the “hope and future” He has had planned for us long ago.

Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD. Psalm 27:14

In the morning, O LORD, You will hear my voice; In the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch. Psalm 5:3.

Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help and our shield. Psalm 33:20

And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You. Psalm 39:7

I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait, And in His word do I hope. Psalm 130:5

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11