We are winding down to the last few messages in the series, “When God Doesn’t” through the book of Habakkuk. This week’s message was called, “What To Expect When You Are Expecting.” Using the familiar term of “expecting” as in when a child is going to be born into your life, Pastor Chad, talked about how expectancy in God is what faith is. We think we know what is going to happen, but we aren’t ready for everything that will come into our lives when we bring a child into the world. What we can know is that God does not waste the seasons we are in. Again, this will not be a wasted season! It’s time to expect and think about, “What would God do in this season of waiting so that we can bear fruit?” Here are a few tips that Pastor Chad gave us for this season of waiting.

1. Get Low – Habakkuk 2:20 But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.” Humility is key. God wants to refine us. If Jesus is the standard and the model that God is looking for would we allow ourselves to get low enough to get real with what we see there in that lowly place? How many times, when we are going through stuff, are we just going to stuff that stuff away? We aren’t dealing with it. It’s still with us. It’s along for the ride. It’s time to clean out the garbage. It’s time to ask God for a pure heart and clean hands. It’s time to get past the, “why God?” and start asking, “what Lord?” 
2. Designate a point person – James 1:22-24 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. Is “Christian” a way of living for you or is it just a label you wear? This life is not about “doing” for God, it is about “being” with Him. Much like how we can collect trinkets, shoes, and car toys, we can also collect our religion without living it. We can make the Holy Spirit your point person! God promised that He would be with us. Don’t shove Him off to the side to just being a consultant in your life. He is the main thing! 
3. Go with the flow – 1 Tim 1:18-19 Timothy, my son, I am giving you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies previously made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the good fight, having faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and have shipwrecked the faith. Sometimes we just want to take the shortcut. Don’t do it! Remember what God has done! He has been faithful and He will be faithful. What if the point isn’t to get over all we’ve encountered in this season but rather to get through it with Christ anchored as our greater hope? We need to go with Him where He leads. He works all things for good. Don’t miss the journey!
4. Give the Holy Spirit a home – 1 Cor 6:19-20 Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body. There is a difference between a house and a home. Your body is the temple of God. A home is a place that we cultivate the most important relationships that we have. It’s where we give our devotion and care. How long has it been since we have acknowledged the Lord? No matter what we are going through whether it be goodness or struggle, He wants to be invited into your life. If we aren’t inviting Him, what are we inviting? What elephant in the room has to go so that you and the Lord can be near? 

I believe that we are in a season of refining. The Lord is desiring to do a deeper work in and through His people. A while back I wrote down a word from the Lord that was coming up out of my spirit. It was mid-November when I wrote it. Here it is: “I sense a lot of shake ups coming. Little shifts and changes that will pin point and reveal the hearts of people. It will be a tough season coming but if you will persevere it is going to be so good. It’s going to look and feel difficult but the Father wants to bring forth the growth and fruit of the seeds of last season that were planted. It’s a time of pushing up through the darkness and the hard ground.” If you have been awake to the current season you know that many shifts and changes are happening.

The hearts of men are certainly being revealed: What is the Lord showing you? If we lean it, its going to be so good! Don’t give up when something doesn’t go the way you thought it was going too – persevere! Don’t hide away when it feels hard – persevere! Don’t run when to going gets tough – persevere! Know the season you are in – its time to push up and through some hard ground. As the Lord shows us what is in the way, let Him move it. We have work to do!

All is grace,

Starla