Waiting and Trusting

“But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.” -1 Thessalonians 5:8 (ESV)

In the context of this verse, Paul had written concerning ‘the day of the Lord’ coming as ‘a thief in the night.’  But he assures believers to whom the letter was addressed that they ‘are children of light’ and they don’t have to fear Christ’s second return.  Paul urges that we ‘keep awake and sober.’  He emphasizes here, as he does in Ephesians 6:10-18, that the Christian should be like a soldier, wearing the armor of salvation, putting  on the ‘breastplate of faith and love, and ‘the helmet the hope of salvation.’

Yesterday I received a letter from a missionary friend who is in the period between one assignment and the next.  Part of her work during this time she is not on the field is to solicit supporters of the mission task she will pursue.  Sometimes it takes great patience to await funding for projects and to be assured that the needs will be met.  During the interim between mission assignments, she is also undergirding her personal Christian strength by much studying the Bible, missions methods, and learning to trust God more fully for needs.  I thought when I read this dear missionary’s newsletter how much each of us, daily, like she, needs to grow in trust and faithfulness and wait patiently on the Lord to open the way He wants us to go.  Allow the interim period of waiting to be productive with personal spiritual growth and learning to trust God more and more.  If we wait and still doubt we are going against God’s promises to supply our needs. If we wait trusting, we will anticipate with joy and gladness the fulfillment of God’s promises, and furthermore we will find that He will supply our needs even beyond what we ask him, “pressed down, shaken together, running over” (Luke 6:38).  Wait on the Lord, and as you wait, allow your trust to grow stronger.  –Ethelene Dyer Jones  11.17.2013