Waiting for God’s goodness doesn’t always feel like helpful advice. When we are experiencing challenging life moments, such as loss. When a loved one is in the midst of a major medical crisis, we want action, not to be told to wait. When we look at the news and feel weighted down by all the negatives that are happening, it feels way too passive to wait. Hearing God’s time is not our time brings more frustration than hope because we want something to happen right now! This is how I sometimes have felt when like is really hard. Have you ever felt that way?

Perhaps I feel this way because waiting and patience are not one of my strong character traits. I want to do something, anything, to make things better. I want God to fix things right now. I equate waiting with doing nothing.

But waiting for the Lord is not a passive activity. Waiting doesn’t mean that we get to sit around and do nothing until God fixes the mess that we are in. Waiting for the Lord is an active and often challenging response to life.

It is anticipating that God is already acting in this situation. It is celebrating every place we see the goodness of the Lord breaking forth. And, it is a reminder that we need to ask what can we do. Waiting is a call to work with God however we can in our particular situation, knowing God will give us the strength and courage we need.

Sometimes this is a renewed call to prayer and surrender, trusting in God, because there is nothing more we can do. But most of the time it is a call to vision a new and better place and ask what can I do, with God’s help to lean into that vision.

I think of the young person I knew who was struggling with cancer in the bone in his leg. Chemotherapy and radiation slowed the progression but finally there came the time when the doctor had to tell him and his family that the only option left was to remove his leg just below the knee. It was devastating news but as he waited for healing to take place, he was not passive. He loved to snow ski and he was determined to be on the slopes again. His grandmother told me how he researched how to make that happen. He reached out to others who had gone through similar health crises. He lived believing life was good, that God would give him the strength to go forward. The last I heard, he was again skiing.

So, life can be better than it is right now. God is at work and we need to anticipate the good God is doing. We are also asked to be a part of that work open to God’s leading.

Loving God, give us strength to actively wait on You. You are always working at making a new and good thing happen as we will just join our hearts and lives with yours. AMEN.

This devotional was written by Bill Green and read by Joey Smith.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

If you would like to respond to these devotionals in any way, we would enjoy hearing from you. Our email address is: podcasts@1stchurch.org.

First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love...

Scholars have debated for centuries what Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” might have been. Was it a physical ailment? An emotional burden? An enemy? We don’t know—and in many ways, we don’t need to. What matters is that Paul knew what it was to plead with God for relief and to hear instead a word of grace: “My grace is enough for you.”

Caregivers can relate deeply to this passage. We, too, have wrestled with burdens that won’t go away. We may have begged God for healing for our loved one, not because we don’t want to care, but because the weight is so heavy and unrelenting. And yet, our hearts resist the idea of being “relieved” through loss. It’s a complicated mixture of love, weariness, and sometimes guilt, because we feel both devotion and resentment in the same breath.

I think of the time we cared for our disabled daughter through two weeks of blizzard conditions with no power. No light, no heat, no comfort—just the raw exhaustion of trying to keep her alive in circumstances beyond our control.

We don’t always come to love these situations. But we can, like Paul, learn to accept weakness, stress, insults from those who don’t understand, medical crises, battles with insurance companies, and even disasters—because in our weakness, we discover a surprising strength. It’s not our own strength but the resilience of God’s Spirit working in us and the support of those God sends alongside us.

Lord, I am weak. You know how weary I get, how torn between love and frustration, how guilty I sometimes feel for the mixed emotions of caregiving. Remind me that I don’t have to be strong on my own. Let your grace be enough for me today, and let your power rest on me, even in my weakness. In the name of Christ our Lord, Amen.

This devotional was written and read by Donn King.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

If you would like to respond to these devotionals in any way, we would enjoy hearing from you. Our email address is: podcasts@1stchurch.org.

First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.

I believe that a lot of scriptures give us only part of the story and beg the question, “To what end?” This very familiar passage from Romans is a prime example for me. It brings to mind someone who works out to get stronger physically. Weight produces resistance and resistance builds strength and strength produces a more fit and healthy body. But to what end? To admire in the mirror or to put to work, better able to accomplish tasks?

So to what end does trouble produce endurance and endurance produce character and hope? To admire in our spiritual mirror for how strong we have become? No, I believe Paul provides us an answer in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4...

3 May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ be blessed! He is the compassionate Father and God of all comfort. 4 He’s the one who comforts us in all our trouble so that we can comfort other people who are in every kind of trouble. We offer the same comfort that we ourselves received from God.

In Romans we read that trouble produces endurance, character, and hope. In 2 Corinthians we read that in this trouble, God also provides us comfort. The endurance, character, and hope equip us to “comfort other people who are in every kind of trouble. We offer the same comfort that we ourselves received from God.”

Have you endured the grief of losing a loved one and been able to move on to hope? Offer the comfort that you received from God to others facing that same grief. Have you navigated the recovery from financial woes, or overcome the pain of losing a job or a relationship? You are equipped with comfort and hope to help others facing the same problems.

I believe that every trouble we endure equips us and should compel us to offer the strength and comfort we have acquired to others. In this way we build up others so that they, in turn, can offer the same comfort that we ourselves received from God.

Are you looking for a gift that you can offer to others? What trouble have you endured that, in the end, made you stronger? What a precious gift you have to share!

Father God, we are forever grateful for your presence and comfort you have offered to us in times of our own troubles. Let us be always willing and eager to share that same comfort to our neighbors. Amen

This devotional was written and read by Charlie Barton.

Grace for All is a daily devotional podcast produced by the members of the congregation of First United Methodist Church in Maryville, Tennessee. With these devotionals, we want to remind listeners on a daily basis of the love and grace that God extends to all human beings, no matter their location, status, or condition in life.

If you would like to respond to these devotionals in any way, we would enjoy hearing from you. Our email address is: podcasts@1stchurch.org.

First United Methodist Church is a lively, spirit-filled congregation whose goal is to spread the message of love and grace into our community and throughout the world. We are located on the web at https://1stchurch.org/.