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Your Father says, "Come Child, I'm Waiting"
by Victoria Boyson
www.victoriaboyson.com
God has not given up on you. Quite the contrary, actually. He's waiting in breathless anticipation for the dreams He's placed in you to come to pass. He's watching you...waiting, hoping - preparing to give you a bright future with abundant LIFE. You are His precious child and He watches everything you do with the expectant hope that you will realize your need for Him and turn and give yourself to Him.
God has promised us an abundant life. He wants us to live our lives experiencing every promise He's made to us and every blessing He has in store for us. The Lord dreams of us walking in the destiny He has planned for us and living fully in the abundant, extraordinary life he has destined us to have.
As our Father, God has made plans for us - a destiny for us to realize. From before our birth, He's waited anxiously to watch us live our lives having everything we could dream of and more. But the catch to all this goodness is found in Jeremiah 29:11: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." They're His plans for us, not
our own.
The only way to live an abundant life is by following the plans He's made for you. You are His precious child and He watches everything you do with the eager hope that you will need Him and turn and follow Him.
Surrender
One day, I had had a difficult time with one of my children. They were somewhat defiant and disrespectful to me. But most of what I didn't like in their behavior was their desire to stay in control.
I tried to show them what they were doing wrong and how they were coming across, but it didn't work. So, the harder they pushed to show me they were right, the more determined I was to see a desired change in their
attitude.
What did I want from them?
Surrender...full, absolute, complete and humble surrender. Their punishment continued and became more restrictive until at last they humbled themselves and submitted. It
was really beautiful to see the change in them and sense the change in their spirit.
I said to God, "Wow! That must be how You feel when we finally let go of our 'need' to be right and in control, and
just let You have Your way with us."
So often when we've blown it, we either tend to justify or condemn ourselves. But God doesn't want that anymore than He wants us to rebel. True repentance is
basically saying, "God, You're right and I'm wrong." There's no justification needed with Him because He already knows our hearts thoroughly. We don't need to worry about how we appear to Him
because He's seen it all and loves us anyway.
God doesn't want to crush or annihilate us. His goal is to correct us. He wants to bring us into right relationship with Him so He can, once again, walk with us.
Like He walked with Adam in the Garden of Eden, that's paradise to our Father and it's the only place of abundant life for us.
How terribly silly we must look to God when arguing with Him and
stubbornly wanting to be right, or even when we hold on to just a little bit of control. "Can't you see, God, this is how I felt?" or "Do you not see this is how I was treated?"
But our
Father has seen it all - He's not blind. Indeed, He sees more correctly how we're feeling than we'd like Him too. He sees straight through us to all that we truly feel inside. Yet, we still try to convince Him
that we know what's best for our lives, that our motives are pure and our feelings are justified.
Thank God He loves us enough to stand His ground and continue to require us to act right with righteous motives.
He loves us enough to expect the best out of us.
It's God's love for you that keeps Him hoping for your destiny; it's His love that makes Him committed to the development of His heart in you. He
doesn't want to dominate you. He's waiting for you to give yourself to Him in complete and beautiful surrender.
God's Plan
God knows you will never fulfill His destiny for your life without
following HIS PLAN. So He's determined to keep you close to Him. He won't let go of you. He'll just draw you even closer until you collapse in His embrace. Our Father sees what's around the corner for you -
He is excited to bless you with it. He knows it's what you need and He wants to give it to you.
Yet, before the fulfillment of the promise comes our humble submission to His Lordship. We can squawk and squirm
all we want, but what He's waiting for is our sweet surrender.
The essence of repentance is our surrender to Him. He wants us to obey!
Learning to obey our Father is one of the most essential lessons we
can learn. We must learn to hear His voice and surrender to His leading. The days ahead of us will be perilous and we absolutely must stay rightly aligned with Him.
We can have paradise on this earth; indeed,
He's our Garden of Eden if we walk with Him and not off on our own. Going our own way can quite literally lead to misery and disaster.
There's a good reason why the Word says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean NOT on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight" (Proverbs 3:5-6). Ahhhhh.... doesn't that sounds nice? Straight paths?
Take a moment to think about it...with Him we have everything we need. But without Him, we can do nothing. And unfortunately, I have to say we've all produced a lot of "nothing" in the Lord's name. When we believe we know what we're doing, yet, feel no need to acknowledge God and seek His will, we will accomplish nothing. Often, we've proceeded in our own propose, believing we are working hard for the Lord, only to end up producing nothing of eternal value.
There's a reason why God wants us to call Him "Father." If He's our Father, that makes us His children. And children do best when they exist in humble surrender to their Father, obeying His leading. The plans He has for our lives and the promises God's made to us can only be found where He leads us. If we move away from Him and try to make His promises come to pass by following our on initiative, we will be wasting our time. We lose sight of our Father and get royally messed up.
The Lord won't force you to follow Him; He simply waits for you to come back to Him. He won't yell at you or try to manipulate you. He holds out His hand to you and simply says, "Come Child, I'm waiting."
Your Father is waiting for you to turn and take hold of His extended hand so He can once again walk with you making straight paths and experiencing an Eden-like relationship.
Let Him carry you and watch with utter amazement where HE takes you. "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4).
Pray this with me:
Dearest
Father, I want all that You have for me. I want to walk with You and experience paradise on earth with You daily. I repent of walking out my own plans for my life and I choose to give You control.
Help me to walk
with You Lord. Keep me close to Your heart and increase my capacity to hear Your voice speaking to me. Guide me Father in every aspect of my life. I want to live for You, love You and know You.
In Jesus' name,
Amen.
Scriptures are from the NIV.
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