By Lisa S. Tarno

I have written about waiting rooms before. It seems that most of our lives in totality are in waiting rooms when it comes right down to it. We’d best be getting good at learning to wait well. Waiting is challenging when we are expecting something good, bad or unknown. I’ve experienced all three within a short span of time recently. I am reading through the Bible chronologically from beginning to end as my spiritual growth challenge as of now and my reading today was in Genesis 17.

I love when obscure things in scripture grab my attention. Today, in Genesis 17:5 it read, “…I am changing your name.” Abram was 99 years old when God decided to change his name to Abraham. It’s been said that a name describes a person’s character or experience and the name Abram meant, “exalted father” and God changed it up to become Abraham, meaning “father of many” just before carrying out the miracle of a promised child to him and his wife, Sarah at the age of 100 and 90 years old respectively. 

Often it seems that God forecasts his plan in our hearts years before the actual implementation. Why? I wondered. Maybe it is to give us a dream, hope or vision for our lives beyond what it currently is. I have seen this with Biblical characters, (Abraham, Moses, Joseph, David) as well as current day people with platforms and even to my own heart and perhaps maybe even yours as well. The danger is in the waiting time to either “help God out” to get the plan in motion or default to  disbelief that it will never happen. Have we ever thought to believe that the time of waiting is actually part of God’s plan for us?

In the few examples of Biblical greats, there seems to be a common thread of FORMATION and of BECOMING that needs to happen. God promises to use all our experiences to shape us as He can redeem all things. A plan can be declared for our lives, even a calling, but oh there is the WAIT time to BECOME all that we need to become in order to receive the fruition of a promise. 

I just wrote out a prayer in my journal the other day after SOAP noting Genesis 15 where Abram (yes no name change yet) struggled with doubts of what God promised to him. “But Abram replied, ‘O Sovereign LORD, how can I be sure that I will actually possess it?” (Gen 15:8) It encouraged me that even Abram, who two verses before, was considered righteous because of his faith – STILL had questions and doubts. He needed assurance and confirmation. It encouraged me as I check and double check in with God, especially with what He put on my heart to do years ago. In honesty, I too wonder if it will really come to pass.

My prayer with today’s passage is, “Lord, help me not grow weary in the process of BECOMING…Strengthen me and settle me to faithfully walk in Your ways and to trust that You will bring to pass what You have placed in my heart many years ago.” In the meantime, I just keep putting one foot in front of the other and faithfully live out and write about what He places on my heart. I want to be obedient and trust the formation process to not be lacking anything. 

The other articles I wrote on my blog about waiting and being in the unknown zone have resolved and are either successfully completed or at least now known. But all of that, even the seemingly prosaic moments, are all used to prepare us and form our character to be useful, hopefully! Waiting and perseverance serves a purpose in our lives…it HAS to, because so much of our lives is about waiting. 

Waiting is the necessary byproduct to mature the fruit of PATIENCE! Patience is to “wait peacefully” and its synonym is perseverance which is “persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.” James 1:4 says it well, “Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” Abraham’s name changed years later to better suit what God intended for him, to actually be a father to many. There was a time of formation and becoming for both him and Sarah to receive the blessing that God promised. There were more trials and agony in the waiting that further refined their characters by how they responded. It was reflected in an actual name change by God. 

The FORMATION and BECOMING span of time in our lives does serve a purpose in each of us. As we wait, it’s important to seek God and ask where we are at in our character formation. It’s important to know if there is anything that is an obstruction to His plan for our lives. Are we doing anything that would compromise His calling and plans for us? It could be little or big things that don’t serve us well like an attitude or habit or behavior that needs refining. I’ve learned that sometimes as we wait, really God is waiting on us! But ultimately the maturation of our character in becoming who we need to be is making our fruit (of the Spirit see Galatians 5:22-23) ripe and sweet and desirable to others.