I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer when I am corrected.
Then the LORD answered me and said:
“Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.”
I’m getting chills rereading these words, remembering the time that these words from Habakkuk 2 changed the direction of my life.
But I need to give you a backstory…
I grew up with a strong independent fundamentalist Baptist background, which whether intentional or not, left most girls I know feeling like the best way they could serve God was to learn to play the piano and marry a pastor or a missionary [insert crying-laughing emoji].
I had a passion for playing the piano, so as I began to think about college and what I would major in, this seemed the most obvious. However, my attending college was a big question mark. Being the seventh out of nine kids, meant my parents would not be able to assist much, and my dad’s income was just enough to make me ineligible for grants and scholarships.
But I desperately wanted to go to school.
I’ll spare you all the details and jump straight to the good stuff–I ended up going to school in Florida.
There are a few details I have to mention because they speak to the goodness of God but do not have anything to do, really, with the main point of this post.
Toward the end of my first semester, the WEEK before finals, I realized I’d come up short, and would not be able to make my final payment for the semester. I was crushed, embarrassed, and confused.
I thought this is what God wanted me to do! He had led me this far, and what was the point if everything I’d done that semester wouldn’t count toward anything?
One Friday afternoon, after panicking for a couple of days and praying fervently, I was filled with the conviction that I was going to take my finals, which began on Monday. So I studied all weekend.
The movie Facing the Giants by the Kendrick brothers had come out not too long before school, and the line from that movie “prepare for the rain” was my war cry all weekend long. The girls in my dorm all collected spare change and cash for me, amounting to a small sum that was nowhere enough but bolstered my spirits and faith that SOMEHOW God would make a way.
Sunday night I got a call from my parents. My mom was sobbing and she said “Emyly, we got a phone call and there is someone who is going to pay for the rest of your semester.”
Then I was sobbing!
The following morning before I went to take my exams I got another call from my mom who said “Emyly! They want to pay for the rest of your schooling!”
I asked God for rain, and it down poured.
A year later, midway through my sophomore year, I had to drop out of school due to health issues.
I once again found myself in a place of fear, uncertainty, and disbelief.
Why had God allowed the sickness when He had provided for the finances for me to be in school in the first place?
The next year was one of the hardest years of my life. I felt as if God had fallen silent. I had answers for nothing, but questions for everything.
As I worked through my health, both physical and emotional, I kept sinking deeper and deeper.
In the spring of 2013, I was at my darkest point, despairing and angry with God for remaining silent.
I prayed in frustration, “God I need to hear from you!”
You see while I’d been doing my devotions regularly and faithfully, it had felt empty. As I said, I felt like God was silent. Nothing in scripture seemed to speak to me, encourage me, or give me some sort of direction.
“God, I need to hear from you!”
I’d been wrestling with the desire to go back to school, but once again found myself not financially able to pay for school, and I wrestled with how to know what was faith and what was foolishness.
So there I lay face down crying on my bed, Bible closed in front of me. “I don’t understand why you’re silent. Please show me something–anything!”
And knowing this was perhaps not the best way to do your devotions, but feeling desperate and out of options, I flung the Bible open to a random page, hoping against all hope for a crumb from God.
I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer when I am corrected.
Then the LORD answered me and said: “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, it will not tarry.”
When I tell you these words quickened my heart and anchored themselves to my soul, it still does not quite depict the impact they had. I was like someone who’d been wandering the desert for weeks discovering a fresh spring!
At that moment I knew, without a doubt, I would return to college, and I knew that I would change my major to one involving writing. I knew the Lord was telling me to be patient a little while longer, and that He had plans for my life that I could not begin to fathom.
While it is an unorthodox way of hearing from the Lord, throughout the next year I saw His answers.
I went to speak at a teen girls’ retreat at my friend’s church in Arkansas, which was an answer to prayer as well because my heart had been burdened with a message, but I didn’t know who it was supposed to go to.
When I returned from that trip, I was asked to speak at a couple of classes at my home church, again speaking on the things that the Lord had put on my heart.
And the icing on the cake, not even six months later, in a flurry of decision and direction I was headed back to school where–spoiler alert–I graduated from two and a half years later.
I was reminded of these verses a few days ago, and though in a less dramatic way than the first encounter, revived my heart just when I needed it.
I’m embarrassed to say that I had forgotten the goodness of God. I’m embarrassed to say I’d forgotten the power of prayer. But how like God to leave the 99 for me, to bring me back into the shelter of the Almighty.
And I can confidently say, He’ll do the same for you.
I don’t know what it is that burdens your heart, that makes you fall before the Lord feeling lost and doubtful–but my dear friend, though He tarries, wait for Him! What He has in store is more than you can comprehend. Rest in that this exact moment, and anchor yourself to that truth.
Olive & Moor 