Clearing The Way In The Wilderness

All of us, at one point or another, find ourselves in a season of waiting.  A hard season of waiting on God to work it all out.  I get it.  I know this season just as well as you.  But I hope I can be of some encouragement to you today.

Isaiah 40:2 says, “Listen!  It’s a voice of someone shouting, ‘Clear the way through the wilderness for the Lord!  Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God!’”

Oh friends… we have the ability to make a way for Him to do the work that ONLY He can do!  But so often times we hinder that work by choosing to remain stuck in our wildernesses.  We must make a way through the wasteland.  In this world we WILL have troubles.  That’s a guarantee.  But there absolutely is a better way than despair and depression and disappointment.  When we choose to linger in the hurt and pain too long, we become disabled from seeing the mighty work of Jesus.  Oh that we would ALWAYS insist on maintaining an intentional awareness of our assignment to hear His voice.  Where is He standing in you circumstance… now go and stand right next to Him!  We can’t afford any kind of distraction from what it is He is doing and what it is He is saying.  Distraction leaves to distance, disinterest, and ultimate disability and dysfunction. 

So today, as my own battle begins, and the battles rages for those I love, I am CLEARING the way in the wilderness for the Lord.  I am making room for Him to work.  I am looking for His love, mercy, and goodness in everything about this day.  I am making a straight highway through the wasteland for Him to walk through.  I am opening the doors of praise in my house (my physical body) and I am sending out praisers in ADVANCE of the storm, because I know the work that will shine from the other side of ALL of this is incomparable to anything else.

I cannot focus on the pain AND His promises at the same time.  I cannot give influence to both my poor circumstances and worry AND His powerful capacity and willingness to answer simultaneously.  I can only be awe’d by one thing - what will it be?

I wrote it in my journal months ago, and it is still true today:

Oh I am gonna praise Him even in this!
Even in the uncertainty!
Even in the pain!
Even in the dysfunction!
Even in the discomfort!
He is using even this!

All for MY good and HIS glory!

Happy Thursday, friends!