Is there something you have been hoping God would bring about for a long time? Something that you’ve kept close to your heart, prayed for time and again, even begged for—all the while believing God heard you and was at work behind the scenes to bring it to pass.
Seven years ago I visited a Sunday service at a church in another state where I felt the power of the Holy Spirit at work all around me and could tell that everyone else felt it too. It was a church where people felt free to worship in song and dance, following the flood of glory that just filled the room up full. What a rush to feel God’s presence so distinctly, so intrinsically—an atmosphere I hadn’t enjoyed in my own church in many years.
I started praying that God would make it possible for me to regularly attend a church like that one where I could join in such a worshipful liturgy, or that He would move magnificently like that in the church I was attending already. Five years went by, and I kept praying, hoping, waiting. I trusted that God would move, but I chose to be patient, to hold onto hope.
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.”
Proverbs 13:12 NLT
God puts dreams in our hearts for a purpose, desires He plants as seeds in our souls, because our human nature is to long for more and more of Him than anything this world has to offer. Our dreams, giant as they might be, are meant to draw us to His side, dependent on Him alone to fulfill them. And yes, even hope is like His whisper calling our names, beckoning the worn parts inside of us to find refreshment in the midst of waiting.
But the Lord knows that if we wait and hope for too long, our spirits begin to whither, start to sour, succumbing to bitterness. When hope takes a turn away from patience, our hearts grow sick with sorrow and sting.
But God always has the last word.
After those five long years, I did it. I started to lose hope. The instructions of the Lord through that season were not leading me to find the kind of church I had been praying for in my home state. I began to wonder what He was up to, why I couldn’t have the one thing I craved when it meant growing closer to Him.
But then God did something so unexpected, my mouth was left wide open. He called my family to move to that state (Texas) and attend that church (The Prayer Room Church) where I first prayed that prayer! So God had heard my prayer and had been working on an answer, but it was one far better than I even asked for! I didn’t get to join a church like The Prayer Room; I got to join THE Prayer Room!
I just needed to wait. And trust.
This morning as the glory of God absolutely filled the entire church more abundantly than I have every felt it, my pastor, Robert Walker, spoke about how Noah poured his life into building the ark in the midst of the desert because God called him to do it. But, he said, Noah probably first planted the trees that would produce the wood from which he built it! His seedling hope in the Lord literally produced the trees that brought forth the purposes and promises of God. That is some kind of hope that Noah had! And trust.
There are many more dreams in my heart that remain unfulfilled as yet, but I have seen God work, and I know without a doubt, He is at work in ways I cannot see. His ways bring my greatest victories. His ways bring forth a tree of life inside of mine in His perfect time.
“Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes you.”
Ephesians 3:20 TPT
This is how we hold onto hope.
God’s miraculous power is constantly energizing us to trust Him from seed all the way to tree. And, as my other pastor, Jennifer Walker, offered this morning as well, energized trust is born from maintaining the spiritual disciplines: reading the Word, prayer, fasting, and participating in the body of Christ, the church–all the essential, the vital ways God works in and through us. If you are already doing these things, then worry not–your tree will soon arise! Simply allow His energy to produce in you the hope of your dream fulfilled.
What are you hoping for in Him? Share it in the comments and let’s stand in agreement together that His next answer to prayer exceeds our wildest imagination!
The Art of Choosing True Life 