We plan.

We wait through work.

We arrive.

We wait and work, and work and wait.

Then comes the reward.

But while we work and wait, there are lessons to be learned.

The seen of work and the unseen of waiting sit on our belief system. And our behavior sits on belief.

I continue to learn, and years ago I heard from popular author and teacher James MacDonald said that people misbehave for one of three main reasons.

Ignorance, discouragement or rebellion.

Mr. McDonald seems to b correct. My following conclusions are not academically studied but are a combination of my memory of what Mr. McDonald taught and from personal observation. His solution was to:

Teach ignorance. Encourage discouragement. Correct Rebellion.

If you encourage ignorance, you keep people in the dark and under developed. If you correct ignorance, you frustrate the ignorant.

If you teach the discouraged, you insult their intelligence. If you correct discouragement, you invalidate their efforts this far.

If you teach rebellion, you empower it. If you encourage rebellion, rebellion wins.

So I figured the converse must be true.

The full life involves learning, encouragement and compliance.

As the popular singer Tom Petty said “The waiting is the hardest part.”

Patience is learned in the working and waiting.

It S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-S one’s soul to the point of pain sometimes. It makes you stand face to face with what’s truly inside you. All inner fears and faithfulness are challenged, magnified and need tending to.

When God’s in charge, how can we lose as we ready our work, set it in motion and wait for the result?

What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him? – Rom. 8:31-32

Feeling stretched?

Our Loving Father is about the business of helping us stay informed, encouraged and in compliance with Him today that our working and waiting be worth it in the end.

Amazing!