God’s Waiting Room - The One Year Wisdom for Women Devotional

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.

Proverbs 13:12 (NKJV)

A hope deferred is a hope that is postponed. It’s when we hope that something will happen, and it doesn’t happen when we hoped it would happen. It takes longer—sometimes much, much longer.

If you’re a mother of a prodigal child, you know only too well the heartache of this painful waiting, watching, hoping. You long for that moment when your child “comes to himself” and comes back into a restored relationship with both you and God.

But may I give you a good word? Don’t hope for a shortcut. Sometimes just to have our children back and safe and comfortable, we would gladly settle. This means that we don’t always have their souls and their relationship with God as our primary concern. We want them back. We don’t want to see them suffer even for their own sin. We bail them out and enable their wrong behavior. But may I say to you, I know your heart breaks, but let it break over their broken relationship with the Lord more than the sorry state of their circumstances. I have seen parents come to a fresh wind of patience and hope when they shift their desire and their prayers there.

Lord, however, whenever, whatever it takes to bring my child back, let them come home to you first.

Then and only then, grieving parent, when that desire is fulfilled, it will then be for both of you truly “a tree of life.”

Make It Personal . . . Live It Out!

Waiting—oh, the agony of waiting! Are you single, wondering if God has forgotten you? Are you in a difficult marriage or longing to have a child? God’s waiting room can be very lonely. On the other hand, it can be the place where you become more desperate for God than you have ever been.

Let’s Pray

Lord, there is no one who understands the longing of my heart like you. I am ashamed that I have been angry at times and shut you out. Help me to trust you more and to be satisfied that you can fill this longing with yourself.

One Year Bible Reading

Joshua 19:1–20:9; Luke 19:28-48; Psalm 88:1-18; Proverbs 13:12-14