Unknown variables....

make me crazy. As in crazier than usual. Life's details with all given variables look like my 9th grade algebra book. There is some number and it is "x." Now if I could just find it.

The "x" is some news my family is waiting on. We've prayed for and about the circumstance and we greatly desire to hear the news. The vortexian swirl of unknown variables that accompany this news and the unknown is crushing my focus right now and bringing on an addlepated thought process.

I thought I would confess my impiety.

I am working through Nancy Guthrie's One Year Book of Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament. It's an excellent devotional thought, passage and prayer that I use in addition to my regular study. She's a breath of fresh air in the devotional offerings of today. I highly recommend her.

But her titles for this week acted on my conscious as Chinese fortune cookie slips. The accompanying lesson acted on my conscience as conviction.

August 11: God's Grand "Yes!" 
I was sure this was the day of hearing our news. I was excited to read the "signs." Conviction came as the words penetrated my heart to read that all God's promises are "Yes!" in Jesus Christ. No matter the answer to our waiting, will God's eternal yes in Christ satisfy my heart?

Why yes, I thought. Submitted again to the truth that God's timing is perfect and my impatience is weakness. On through the day I marched.

August 12: The Heavens Proclaim the Glory of God
All righty then. This would be the day where our news would be known, the variables cemented and I would join heaven's chorus. Conviction came as the day progressed without news and yet I am still commanded to praise the King of Heaven.

And then I peeked at the next day's heading...

August 13: Abandoned by God
Maybe this one I should skip.

Do you see where I'm going with this yet?

The titles of a devotional are no more confirmations and signs than a horoscope's predictions or a fortune cookie's missive or plopping open the Bible and seeing which verse our hovering finger lands upon.

Yet in the periods of waiting or wanting, of wondering and wandering, there is much weakness. When we joke about wishing that God would put a billboard by the side of the road with the news of what we are to do, we more than halfheartedly wish He really would.

What's a waiting Christian to do?

The lesson for me this week has been to acknowledge the weakness of my flesh to desire such things and repent. Acknowledge that God does confirm me in His Word and through godly counsel and in prayer and submit myself to such. Most importantly though, acknowledge the truth of His gospel for my life. The Lord of the heavens, worthy of all praise, has done all that is necessary in eternity for my faith and my life. Trusting Him in the active means not a continual replaying of the variables and unknowns, but a continual retelling of the knowns.

God is sovereign. God is just. God is good. In all He does for and unto me. And this week's waiting has been sweetly touched by friends who have told me His good news over and over and over again in phone calls, emails and even the diversionary date where laughter and sweet cupcakes were shared.

We still don't have our news and only God knows when we will. But until then, I'm in the lap of my Father who still loves even this silly little child.