How many times I’ve felt the temptation to be God and fix my problems! The temptation to control the destiny of my life vs. wait for His timing and action on when I’m fruitful, how I’m fruitful, and the outcome.
In the Gospel, Jesus has this same temptation. The devil tempts Him to be God, control His life, and bring about fullness – before Jesus’ time of fullness comes to pass. It’s not that God doesn’t have plans for Jesus to “make bread” – it’s that His time for doing it hasn’t come yet to do that. There’s a specific time for that miracle to take place. In the desert while fasting, was not that time. If it was, it would have been tied to the devil’s temptation and not the will of God. It would have had evil’s stain on it.
Jesus knows better because He is connected to the Father. He continues to remain in the desert and deny Himself food until the time of fasting, prayer, desert, and waiting is over. He resists the temptation to “be God” and make the miracle happen sooner. Only after this time does He launch into ministry and His fruitfulness is abundant in good works, miracles, and more. God’s timing is perfect for Jesus… and for us.
This is a model for us ladies in our waiting. Waiting is a desert experience of emptiness, the silence of God, and hunger for what we desire. The longer the waiting persists, the hungrier we get for what we want and we can be tempted to grasp control and push things along when our waiting persists for a long time.
Instead, we should be embracing the desert and sitting with the emptiness, waiting for God to tell us our next step as we try to do His will. The miracle will happen like Jesus’ did, but at God’s time and in God’s way, and with Jesus’ stain on it and not the devil’s. If we push to soon, the outcome can become a work of the devil and not God’s – there’s a difference!
Self denial and delayed gratification: It’s hard. It’s difficult. But it’s necessary for the fruitfulness we seek. Don't try to be God. Let God be God!
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