Our waiting is God’s vetting

To be patient in our faith, know that our waiting is God’s vetting.

Most of us hate to wait. We live in a culture that glorifies, even glamorizes, people who are movers and shakers. We want to get things done, and we want to get them done fast. While such an attitude may be helpful in certain jobs, it becomes unhelpful when we start approaching God. He works at his pace. He certainly wants to give us the best of blessings, but he also wants us to be ready for those blessings.

If we aren’t ready, then those very blessings can turn into curses. We may become infatuated by those blessings, diverted from our principles and purposes due to pride or an entitlement mentality. Indeed, there are myriad ways in which we can be misled in the world, especially when we have an abundance of worldly things that can easily become agents of illusion, misleading us.

Therefore, God often wants us to wait until we are pure enough. We need to see our waiting as God’s vetting. When we are waiting for God to unfold his plan for us, we are not meant to wait passively with barely contained resentment. We are meant to increase our prayer and strive for contentment, finding in our waiting an opportunity for a deepened connection with God that comes through prayer.

When we show our Lord that we are ready to be happy with him alone, even when he hasn’t given us the things of the world we had sought, it is then that he knows we are ready for those things. We won’t let those things distance us from him. The Gita declares in 7.19 that rare and glorious are the souls who understand that God himself is the embodiment of all blessings and fulfillment.

Our waiting and God’s vetting offer us the blessed opportunity to evolve in our devotion, joining the ranks of such great souls who have realized God’s greatness and who are forever relishing his incomparable sweetness.

Summary:

• When our prayers remain unanswered, we should see our waiting as God’s vetting process.
• God desires to give us the best blessings but wants us to be mature enough to ensure that worldly things don’t lead us away from our higher principles and from him.
• By waiting with contentment and a focus on God, we show him we are ready to receive his blessings, having learned to value him as our greatest treasure.

Think it over:

• How can we view our waiting for God to answer our prayers more positively?
• Why doesn’t God bless us immediately?
• What attitude in our waiting ensures that we pass God’s vetting?

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07.19 After many births and deaths, he who is actually in knowledge surrenders unto Me, knowing Me to be the cause of all causes and all that is. Such a great soul is very rare.