Enough Already!
Blog – 4-4-18
As I looked out my window yesterday morning and saw all the snow on the ground, my first reaction was the words written in pink above, “Enough Already!” Yes, I’ve written in earlier blogs that I love snow, but like most of us here in the Midwest, I’m getting tired of it. I’m cold, and I’m ready for Spring!
I’m sure many of you reading this are feeling the same way. It’s been a long winter, and most of us are ready for warmer weather.
And some of you reading this might even feel that way about your life in general – Enough Already!
Maybe you’re running out of patience with a situation in your life that has been dragging on for way too long. Maybe you’re sick and tired of feeling sick and tired because the healing that you’ve been praying and praying for hasn’t come. Maybe it feels like you’re dealing with one crisis after another and life has become overwhelming.
Maybe your heart and soul are crying out, “Enough Already!”
I get it. I’ve been there. There are issues in my life right now where I feel the cold, bitter sting of waiting.
My favorite psalmist, David, knew a thing or two about waiting and didn’t like it any better than we do. He had those intense periods where he cried out in desperation, “Enough Already!” There were times when God felt silent in his life and an intense spirit of despair washed over him. Psalm 13 is David’s passionate cry to God in a season of waiting:
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Psalm 13:1-2
David has obviously had enough and is extremely distressed because the words “how long” appear four times in the first two verses. He wondered, just like us, if and when God was going to come to his aid. He feared on the deepest level that God wasn’t even listening.
Yet in the midst of that period of waiting, David gives us a beautiful example of how to deal with our impatience. First, he is honest before God. He doesn’t try to hide his feelings from His Father but is real about his frustrations:
Look on me and answer, O Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death; my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes will rejoice when I fall. Psalm 13:3-4
David asks God for specific deliverance from his situation. He asks God to defeat his enemies and deliver him. David talked to God like a friend, expressed what he was feeling, and found strength in the process.
That process leads to the greatest lesson I believe we can learn from David:
But I trust in your unfailing love; My heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me. Psalm 13:5-6
David chose to trust, rejoice and sing. He chose to trust God’s love in spite of how he was feeling. He chose to remember and rejoice over the salvation God had already blessed him with. And in the midst of the waiting, David chose to worship God. So powerful!
That’s extremely hard to do when our souls are crying out “Enough Already,” but what a beautiful way to handle the difficult periods of waiting…to trust, rejoice, and sing. I realize it’s easier said than done, but what inspiration and encouragement we can find from our friend and fellow believer David.
It reminds me that even in the little frustrations in life like the weather, the truth is Spring will eventually come. It always does.
And when it comes to the bigger things in life and we feel discouraged in seasons of waiting, we can trust the fact that God knows our unrest, He sees every moment of our waiting, and His answer will come at the exact right time.
David’s words encourage me to say to myself “Enough Already!” on the complaining. Have faith in God’s timing…Trust! Rejoice! Sing!
Hugs and love,
Jill