I was born and raised a true Floridian. I grew up around mangroves and seafood. Outwardly, I was known as the football player and the “guy who could break dance” in high school. But inwardly I experienced intense, debilitating chronic fears. These anxieties started when I was young and followed me into adult life.
Something as simple as riding in a car with someone or taking an elevator scared me. And I said I would never get on an airplane. The farthest thing from my mind was travel being interwoven into my life. I didn’t want anything that would cause me to leave my comfortable surroundings. When I was 16 years old, Jesus saved me from my sins, but the thought of doing ministry never entered my mind. I was saved but not surrendered.
I believed Jesus was with me, but my 20s and 30s were a game of survival. I endured obsessive fears, intrusive thoughts, and panic attacks. My life was often miserable as I anxiously tried to fix myself. Eventually, I reached the point of surrender and realized all God wanted me to do was trust Him. But the process of God stripping me of control was long and painful.
A Call to Missions
In my 30s, my wife and I started attending Bible Study Fellowship and studied God’s Word in depth. It was through being in a deep Bible study that God convicted me to obey every word of God and not just pick and choose what to obey. I’ve always been an evangelist and shared the gospel with people at work, but studying the Bible convicted me to further obedience.
In 1999, I began praying for what God wanted me to do, and I asked Him to confirm His calling for my life in His Word. On Monday, I went to BSF and received the usual homework. The next day, I opened the homework that directed me to Genesis 12:1, which says, “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’” That was probably the loudest God had ever spoken to me.
Through continued Bible study, and attending missions’ conferences, the Lord made it clear to my wife and me that we were called to go. But it wasn’t immediate.
Through the waiting, God was healing me from all my fears and anxieties. He was preparing me for the mission field in ways that I wasn’t even aware of. I thought that when we committed to being missionaries that we would leave right away. But it took at least an additional three years before we landed on foreign soil. That was just the beginning of learning to wait on God.
Eventually, we sold our house, and my wife and five kids (at the time) flew to Costa Rica to learn Spanish. After a year of language learning, we moved to the Dominican Republic to serve our first term.
Daily Praying and Waiting
While living overseas as a missionary with my family, waiting on God became part of our everyday life — especially as it related to prayer and waiting for God to answer. We prayed daily for the lost, for God to raise up leaders, and for new churches to be planted in a very dark place, where they practice Santeria (a syncretic religion involving idol worship, false offerings, and Satanic practices). We knew that these prayers aligned with His will, therefore we had confidence that He would answer them — which He did — but in His timing, not ours. That was the hard part, and it never got easier.
The Difficulty of Waiting
The very nature of waiting goes against our flesh because we want immediate gratification. But God often operates through delayed gratification. Waiting patiently on God is not fun and can be painful at times, especially if you’ve been praying for someone or something for a long time.
God is not a magician, like many Christians make Him to be. He answers prayer in His timing as it relates to His will for our lives. One thing that I learned while being on the mission field is that God’s ways are normally more difficult and require patience, long-suffering, and perseverance. The ways that are quick, and easy, with little resistance often come from the enemy. Satan’s goal is to distract and deceive us. He tempts us with immediate gratification, which is the desire of the flesh.
Patience in and of itself can be a form of suffering. Our sinful, selfish self wants things now and we don’t want to wait. But good things that come from above take time and patience. Patience is God’s building block to conform us to His likeness and character. The more trials and challenging circumstances that God leads us through, the more we learn what patient endurance is and the more we grow. It is very painful in the beginning, but as we mature and grow in our faith, the suffering that is created by waiting on God turns into stronger faith and trust in the Lord.
Encouragement During Waiting
Psalm 46:10 and Isaiah 40:31 encouraged and sustained me while waiting. Specifically, Isaiah 40:31 strengthened my heart before we left overseas, when the first mission board that we looked into was a closed door. The Scriptures also gave me hope and confidence while living overseas as a missionary and still encourage me today while back in the States. In Psalm 46:10, “Being still” is recognizing that God is sovereign and all powerful, which demands a fearful respect.
We’re not the only ones who wait.
Waiting is part of God’s character as He patiently waits for us sinners to realize our need for a Savior. God’s waiting is a demonstration of His love and grace toward us. As it says in 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
But why does God make us wait?
He makes us wait to show us that He’s sovereign and in control. If God answered our prayers instantly, then we might begin to think that we have some type of control over God and over our lives. God is patient and makes us wait because He is orchestrating His will in us. God’s goal in everything He does is to make His name know and to glorify Himself.
He makes us wait so He can strengthen our faith and trust Him. When we wait daily on God, we learn to depend on Him and trust His power to direct our paths. He is more concerned about our character than with our destination. God is orchestrating circumstances in our lives to shape our character more like Christ. And He does this by making us wait patiently.
As Christians, we are often in a hurry to arrive at the destination (God’s will), but God is more concerned with the process — how we arrive.
Even though waiting might imply doing nothing, it’s the opposite: Waiting is prayerfully pressing ahead (taking action) in the direction that God has impressed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit. We do everything we can, knowing that God in His sovereign grace will direct and cover us whenever we come up short.
We prayerfully move forward on the path God has set before us. As we move forward, we know God works through us to accomplish His will for our lives. He wants to use us as His feet, hands, and mouth to accomplish His plans for us and for His glory. He wants us to walk with Him because He desires our fellowship. It’s a relationship.
What Now?
Here’s my encouragement: Press on, act, pray without ceasing, be alert to what God is doing, and wait patiently — knowing He is orchestrating and answering your prayers through you and your circumstances. God is faithful and can be trusted even when we don’t understand. Stay the course.
— Steve Flook served with the International Mission Board for 13 years. He and his wife, Marilee, have been married for 33 years and have six children and three grandchildren. His daughter, Mary Margaret, is staff writer at The Baptist Courier.