Pray, Speak, Pray, Wait

Do not say, “I will repay evil”: wait for the LORD and He will deliver you. Proverbs 20:22

I love that picture of God looking down on our circumstances. He sees all that is completely out of our range of sight.

As we look at it from a horizontal view, we see only what is in front of us. But from God’s perspective, He has foreordained the history, the current circumstances, and the future. He has already positioned all the players, all the consequences, and all the spiritual growth that will come from whatever we are in right now.

His providence, His wisdom, and His grace are why we must trust Him and His Holy Spirit to do work that we are not even aware needs to be done.

We do not know what we do not know. Praise God, He knows everything.

We can pray for His intervention. We can seek wise counsel. We can (and should) act in whatever way we can. We can (and should) speak the truth to others. Then, we must wait on the Lord.

It can be hard to watch someone we love in a difficult situation that they do little or nothing to correct. This is harder when it’s your child or someone we think should have a better biblical understanding. Harder still when we think we have spoken truth to them and they refuse to listen.

To the “offender,” we can gently and graciously correct them. We can advise them. We can pray for them. Then we wait for the Holy Spirit to do His work.

We have no power to change them.

Remembering a situation from years ago, what stands out is that “banging my head against a brick wall” feeling when someone was not responding as “I” repeatedly stated “my” case. “My” correction did not move them. It was aggravating.

I also remember the conviction of the pride and lack of faith I was displaying as I was trusting my own efforts and not the Spirit of God to change the heart.

Once I got out of the way – I still saw no change. But, I did have a peace about what God was so much more capable of doing than I.

The encouragement is that God is the One who can change the heart and mind of other people. (Actually, He’s the only One who can.) The more we repeat the action of trusting our own efforts above His ability, the harder the brick wall feels.

God is powerful, as are the prayers of a righteous person. Say what needs to be said. Pray what needs to be prayed. Then, wait upon the LORD.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).