Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:08] Welcome back to another edition of the Weekday Podcast. I'm so glad you're here. We absolutely love getting to spend about five minutes a day, five days a week with you, and we hope you find these encouraging. Today on the podcast, I want to think about when waiting actually feels like wasting. In Nehemiah, chapter 2, verses 1 and 2, it says this. Now, I had not been sad in the presence, in his presence before.
[00:00:29] So the king said to me, why is your face sad? Seeing that you are not sick, this is nothing. But listen to this phrase, sadness of the heart, then I was very much afraid. I wonder if you've ever felt like God hit the pause button on your prayers like you're ready to go, but heaven seems quiet. You want to progress, but all you hear is wait. Well, that's where we find Nehemiah. He's stuck between heartbreak and breakthrough. Between chapter one and chapter two of Nehemiah. We've covered some of this, but you know this. There's a gap of four months.
[00:01:01] Four months of silence. Four months of.
[00:01:03] Well, honestly, it felt like God was doing nothing. But what I want to say today is that those months weren't wasted. They're actually forming Nehemiah into the kind of leader who could carry the weight of the dream. God was not ignoring him. He was incubating him. When Scripture says I had not been sad in his presence before, what it shows is that Nehemiah had been restraining deep grief from for months.
[00:01:28] He worked faithfully while carrying that heartbreak privately. And yet, behind the silence, God was aligning an empire for one ordinary man's obedience. Now, God's timeline is never about convenience, but it is about completion. What feels like a delay is often development. Now you know what it's like. It's sort of like being in the world's slowest drive through. You pull in hungry, you're optimistic. But by the time you reach the window, you've memorized the license plate of the car in front of you, and you've begun to question all of your life's choices. Well, waiting, it always tests what's in us. But the longer the line, the hungrier we get. And the hunger is exactly what God uses to deepen our faith. And so when God says wait, he's not withholding something from you. He's working something in you. So here's some recommendations while you wait. Number one, worship instead of worry. Gratitude is what actually keeps your heart soft. Number two, prepare in private.
[00:02:25] Do what you can now so you're ready when the doors open. And then number three. Pay attention to alignment. When it's God's time, things will line up in ways you could not have ever forced. God's silence is not absence. It's actually preparation. And when you trust his timing, you'll never be late for his plan. Have a great day. We'll see you back here.
