The Waiting Game…

Hello Peeps!

                Scattered applause                                       “I just looove waiting Sherline”….           *hint of sarcasm*

Today, I want to talk about waiting for the best things that God has for your life. I can testify that waiting is not easy… and I mean not easy at all! Sometimes we can look at others around us moving ahead and wonder why is nothing happening on our side of the fence? Well, what I have learned in my own personal journey is that whatever God has planned for you, must come at the “right time”. The question is… “when is that timing, Huh!?” lol. Well, I have never really liked that saying that people use to encourage others who are impatient about waiting for what they truly desire to happen in their lives soon when they say “All Good things come to those that wait”… But how long must a person wait until they receive that “Good thing” huh?

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Honestly, it’s hard to pinpoint when to receive whatever God has promised you at the right timing, because God is the only One Who knows when things should happen at the right time in your life. Even though waiting isn’t easy, it produces specific Fruits of the Spirit that need to be nurtured overtime in your life so that you can operate at a high level of spiritual and emotional maturity.

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What are the Fruits of the Spirit?

Galatians 5:22-23 [Full Chapter]

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

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These nine traits are what produce the Fruit of the Spirit. When you are waiting on God to answer a specific prayer or need that you have in your life, you will have to learn what it means to operate in the realm of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

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I have noticed that people don’t mind the positive fruits of the Spirit which are love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness… However, when it comes to the Fruits of longsuffering and self-control, I’m sure some people struggle with these areas of the Fruit of the Spirit. I believe that God included these two Fruits on purpose because He may have known that people may not have too much of a problem to display the other Fruits of the Spirit as much as these two; but the truth is, I highly doubt that anybody could function in the other Fruits of the Spirit properly without these two specific Fruits of the Spirit called longsuffering and self-control.

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• How can one be able to love an obnoxious person or people without longsuffering and self-control?
• How can one be able to function peacefully with others who deliberately try to cause strife in your life and/or in your families lives, or in the lives of people you care about and you continuing to “love” them without longsuffering and self-control?
• How can one be able to operate with joy, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and gentleness with people that try to antagonize you, rock the boat in your life with strife and ruffle your feathers with negative things that they spout off against you and do in your life without longsuffering and self-control?

The list of examples just goes on and on…

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I think that it’s pretty obvious that the Holy Spirit enables us to function with the ability to handle longsuffering with self-control if we learn to embrace ALL the Fruits of the Spirit. We simply can’t operate with one Fruit of the Spirit without functioning with the others. I don’t see how it’s possible to love someone without the other Fruits of the Spirit. I can’t see how someone could have joy in their lives and not operate with kindness, goodness and gentleness. That is simply impossible, because all of these Fruits work together hand-in-hand.

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Again I say, you cannot operate in one Fruit of the Spirit without the others.

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You can’t claim to “love” someone and then treat them with cruelty, spite and a lack of self-control. It is clear to me that in order to function in One Fruit of the Spirit, you’d have to operate on ALL of the other Fruits of the Spirit because they function as all-in-one and one-in-all. You cannot “pick-‘n’-choose” which Fruit you will choose to operate in without functioning in another. They all work together hand-in-hand, and that is why Jesus epitomizes all of these Fruits as part of His identity because when He poured out His Spirit on all flesh, it was so that we could function in all these Fruits of the Spirit as a sign that we are in Christ Jesus.

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Joel 2:28

[ God’s Spirit Poured Out ] “And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions.

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Acts 2:17

‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams.

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So going back to the topic of “waiting”, I mentioned the Fruits of the Spirit intentionally, because your attitude while waiting on the promises of God for your life allows you to function in the Fruits of the Spirit. It is unfortunate that we live in a world where things seem to be produced automatically in such a fast-paced environment where we even have tap-features on debit/credit cards for instant payments; we have fast-food restaurants with drive-thru options; we also have mobile apps that give you instant access to news feeds, social media notifications, etc etc. We currently live in a world that doesn’t really require us to produce such Fruits of the Spirit because we have moved into a realm of instant gratification where we are able to obtain things by instant access made easily by a simple click of a button, etc. Well, at least in North America, this is certainly the case.

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Everything has become so easily accessible to us that we no longer need nor require “Faith” in order to purchase a burger because there’s an “App” for that, lol 😀 . But when it comes to specific answers and prayer requests from God, people become frustrated that there is no “App” for God to simply answer your prayers at the simple click of a button using an instant “tap feature” style to suit your needs and your own agenda(s).

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If anything, God requires us to tap into the Fruits of the Spirit in order to obtain answers directly from Him. When God answers to your need, He wants to bless you in the fullness of time and not at the time you wish to allocate Him to get what you want from Him selfishly at the time that YOU want it. If you’ve been waiting for certain breakthroughs to happen in your life, there is no “App” feature for “prayer” and “fasting”. These are things that we need to learn to do on our own pro-actively in order to produce such Fruits of the Spirit to function in our lives. God knows what you have need of before you even ask Him so learn to be patient and learn to understand that God is never late because He’s always on time. His time may not be our preferred timing, but it doesn’t change the fact that He’s always an “On-time” kind of God.

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Remember this African proverb when you feel frustrated towards God for not having answered your prayers in the way that you would have wanted Him to: “A blessing delayed is not a blessing denied”. 

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Seek God to help you increase in the Fruits of the Holy Spirit and to show you what fruits you lack in order to operate at a realm where you can walk in the Faith of God knowing that whatever He has promised to give you, God is never late; and for whatever He has for you, it will surly come on time, Amen! I have posted a song by for King & Country called Matter. I pray that this post and song blesses you today. God Bless You Everybody! 😀

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