Our church mentoring this month focuses on Marriage and the Family. Before our mentoring session, we were given the copy of the topics we will be talking about.
I got this article entitled “My Soul Waits on God” by Pastor Herman Moldez (executive Director of MentorLink Philippines) and I find this a very nice article to talk about in relation to our marriage and family. Here’s what the article is all about.
MY SOUL WAITS ON GOD
Life is a mystery of waiting. We wait for the unknown. We linger to discover what is hidden. The discipline of waiting is very important for there is so much waiting in life.
In fact, every day is accompanied by moments of waiting. Ordinary life is filled with all kinds of waiting. They are as ordinary as waiting for a ride or for the traffic to move. Airports and shipping ports, train stations and bus terminals are places of waiting.
It is a fact of life to wait. We sit while waiting for a call or to stand on the door for our children to arrive. We line up waiting to buy our food. We wait for healing and deliverance from our difficult problems. We wait for God to answer our prayers—for our marriage and family growth, ministry challenges, intervene in the mess and difficulty we find ourselves in. Finally, all of us wait for our death.
Waiting is a school to teach us patience. It goes against the contemporary mania to get what we want as quickly as we can. In time of digital speed, we rush and demand to receive right away what we desire. If we only seek for instant gratification, then we go to grab any opportunity to satisfy our desire. But it does not work when it comes to our life with God and in managing our marriage and family.
Spiritual growth is a long process of waiting. We can’t hurry spiritual growth for it is a slow process. It is like waiting for the next seasons to come to bring its divine purpose. Growth happens in different stages that we must learn to wait patiently. There is no short cut to spiritual life. We must all wait for our time to grow from childhood to maturity. Life grows in season—of planting and growing, of flowering and fruit bearing before we can finally harvest.
Most of all, we wait on God to come and visit our lives especially in the places we feel most vulnerable—in our private life and marriage. Waiting inspires hope in God’s faithful love and invites us to pray and to claim God’s promise. In the process of waiting we stretch our trust and expand our heart for God.
We must teach our soul to wait on God alone. Rest comes in silent waiting on God. Learning to wait gives us deep peace of resting in the love of God, like a weaned child on his mother’s breast (Ps 131:2). Our soul is renewed as we wait in the hope for our God (Isa.40:31). If we learn to wait from the pit of darkness, God will one day come to raise us up to a place we can securely stand. (Ps.40:1-2)
If you want to use this article in your mentoring sessions, below are the learning tasks to make your discussion more meaningful.
Task
- Read the short essay above. Highlight the words and phrases which you find speaking to you.
- Form into groups to have a spiritual conversation. You can share and respond using any of the questions below:
- What are you waiting in relation to your marriage and family?
- How have you been behaving in relation to what you are waiting for? What insights have you learned in moments of waiting?
- What spiritual discipline are you doing to wait on God? What else must you develop to grow while waiting? How do you plan to cultivate it?
- On your own write a short reflection about waiting on God to meet your longing as you continue on this spiritual exercise. Tell God what you long for in relation with your spouse and in your marriage.
