My family and I had served as missionaries for nearly eight years, pursuing our passion for the liberation of a people enslaved to lies. We long to see them "know the truth that will set them free".
Progress had been slow, for us and for our team. But we had made progress and were, in our estimation, finally getting into the ideal situation for the work to begin in earnest.
Then, at an international conference for leaders of our mission, I heard God say, "I want you to focus on prayer and follow my lead."
"What should I pray for first?" I asked.
"Pray for humility."
So I began praying for humility, and an African brother, unbidden by me but led by God, prayed that God would give us a spirit of waiting.
Within two months God took us away from the work we loved and gave us a brand new business to run. It's not our deep passion. It wasn't expected. It's a place of waiting; Jethro's flocks, if you will.
It's a hard thing, waiting. Like Moses tending his father-in-law's sheep, exiled from his people and from the pursuit of his dream for them, we look often toward the people He chose for us and for Himself, and we wonder when.
"When, God? When can we go back?"
"When its time." He can be so agonizingly cryptic and perfectly precise in His answers.
I want to go back. So badly. My wife and I both do. But there is a deep conviction that God's plan is right, and that we are right to wait. It seems our African brother's prayer has been answered faster than ours. I'm grateful for that. It would be unbearable without the "spirit of waiting" that he asked God to give us.
I fear at times that if humility is going to be the trigger for our return, we may wait ourselves to death. Old age may come before a prideful heart is changed. Oh, God, don't let it be that way!
But the first thing He told me was to pray and follow his lead. Right now, waiting is following.
So here I am, waiting for humility to arrive.
