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Problem or Promise

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About 6 weeks ago I started reading a book. Little did I know it’s pages would stir and awaken something in me.  Some books have a tendency to do that over other books – I don’t know whether it’s timely, or if it’s language with a different edge that brings something alive in a certain way. This book has done that for me.

The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson – I highly recommend it.

It’s a challenge, a call, a manifesto on prayer. Bold expectant prayers, not begging God to do what he’s already done, but standing in the gap and praying his word into every situation.

The start of the book retells the story of Joshua – one of the greatest accounts of circling. Joshua the circle maker.  Joshua circled Jericho, and defeated an entire city by being obedient and listening to God.

It was this part of the book that has been stuck in my head for weeks now. A simple line that had me wonder what I’m circling. Am I circling a promise or a problem?

The question was asked  “What is your Jericho?”

My raw honest answer: “sickness” – I want to see sickness defeated in my family. That’s my Jericho – that’s what I want to see coming down with a loud bang and a thunderous cheer as it goes.

Mark Batterson shed an incredible light for me in that moment.

What if we stop seeing Jericho as a problem, but instead view it as a promise? After all, God had promised Joshua the land, so it was his for the taking. It was a promise he was circling not a problem at all. If we have learnt anything about God at all up until now, it’s that’s he’s always faithful to what he has promised. It might play out differently than we intended or expected but we can be sure He is the greatest promise keeper around.

How you view Jericho will determine how you walk around it.

If Jericho is a problem – the walk can feel long, disappointing, fearful, overwhelming, frustrating and full of doubt.

But if it’s a promise – if you believe with all your heart God will deliver because he keeps his word, then your walk changes. It’s confident, expectant, exciting, full of faith, hope and energetic. With each step, with each lap you are closer to the promise. He will surely do it.

I have had a change in mindset. I’m not circling sickness. I’m circling healing. I wish I could tell you how much this has changed my walk.

But I challenge you to try it.

Instead of seeing the problem, turn to the word and find the promise. What does He say? Then cling to it, hold onto it and get excited about how it’s going to play out. Even when circumstances don’t look great -when the opposite seems more true than His truth, keep circling. Keep your eyes fixed and keep going.

The irony in all of this of course is that I’m sitting writing this from a room in a Children’s hospital. I know what it’s like to see something in your heart and see something different with your eyes. I’m looking at my Jericho right now (she’s sitting playing mine craft on her iPad), but I know God is doing something. I honestly trust the bigger picture, his perfect timing that I know will make me smile one day when it all makes perfect sense, because it will.

I still have my questions. The bigger thing though I have at the minute is confidence in a God I know I can trust with all of my heart.

No matter what you’re facing at the moment – how you view it will determine what you do about it. Gods view and perspective is the best one we could ever have.

Lean in.

Hear his heart.

Learn his ways.

Trust his word.

He is so faithful and is cheering you on into your promised land.

To wait is to look

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“Yet I am confident I will see the LORD’s goodness while I am here in the land of the living. Wait patiently for the LORD. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the LORD.”‭‭Psalms‬ ‭27:13-14‬ ‭NLT‬‬

So this verse has been running around in my head since the Housefires night of worship last week.

I realised that this phrase “I will see your goodness in the land of the living” is very much a faith fuelled statement.

I sang it.

But I was challenged of how confident I was that I would actually see this goodness HERE.

I looked up the Psalm that I knew it was from and smirked to myself as the verse itself declares David was confident that he would literally see the goodness of God in the land of the living – a goodness in this life. And the challenge was real.

How confident am I in that truth and promise?

It’s easy for our confidence to take a knock when what we see doesn’t appear to be very good at all. That’s when our confidence makes a sharp exit right? When what we know to be true from God’s word isn’t what our experience is – and the tension is very real.

What do you do?

I can’t get those verses out of my head.
To be confident… To be sure in what He says. To be sure of what he promises.

I have moments were my faith seems to dip in and out of this zone of confidence.  And there is most definitely a link to what I’m thinking and leaning on in relation to it.

Verse 14 kicks off with a “wait patiently”.

I don’t even need to say much about waiting – we all know waiting patiently is something that is practically non-existent in this day and age. I get frustrated waiting on my phone to connect, or when something is downloading. I don’t know what to do when the microwave is running for 3 mins – it feels like forever. Let’s not even talk about boiling a kettle.

We really don’t have to wait much these days in our fast pace, close to instant world where everything is literally at our fingertips.

So waiting on God?? Like that’s a whole other level.

So I started to look into this whole concept of waiting.

The Hebrew word for “wait” in this passage is the word qavah. The interesting thing about this word is that it adds another dimension to this concept of waiting. It’s not waiting in an ‘I’m bored, impatient’ kinda way,  but it also means to look.

To me that adds another element.

To wait is to look.

To look for what you’re waiting for is this expectant longing that you’re going to see it. This is where our confidence builds.

I kept thinking about the scene of a groom standing at the front of a church waiting on the arrival of his bride.  The waiting is an expectant one, a cheeky look over his shoulder to see if she’s there, but knowing she is.
It’s back to this truth – what are we looking at?

When I wait – I can turn it into a long, depressing event or I can anticipate and let the excitement build as I get confident that it’s just around the corner.  Not a feeling that’s conjured up – but this confident feeling knowing that when God promises something he delivers – every time.

It might not look like we thought it would. The wait might be longer than we had anticipated. But do we trust in His perfect timing?

We have heard it said that it’s not just about the destination, it’s about the journey.

Who we become in the waiting journey is so important. The journey becomes the destination as we grow into an incredible relationship with God who in those hard moments needs to be exactly who we’re looking at.

I think the challenge for me in the waiting is to not make it about waiting but to make it about growing, leaning and looking to the one who knows and sees it all. He is good, faithful and is timing is impeccable.

Get excited about how it’s going to play out  and what he’s doing in and through you in the process.

Qavah. Wait. Look. See.