As a young woman, Mercy came to me asking if she could become a deacon.  She was about 22 years old.  At The Special Gathering, which was a ministry within the mentally challenged community, our deacon board comes from the membership.  I told her that she must wait until she was older.  Every couple of years, Mercy would come back with the same request.  My answer was always the same.

Last year Mercy became a deacon and part of our board of directors.  Even though I continually remind her that I had nothing to do with her election to either board, almost each week she calls me to thank me for allowing her to serve.  A couple of weeks ago, there was a shift in our teaching techniques.  She became the co-teacher of our leadership class.  Today, I received a phone call from an excited Mercy.  “Tell me what I need to know about the class.  You sat in the class last week.  What do I need to be doing?”

Because the regular teacher was on vacation, I was there to do what the teacher normally does.  I explained to her that her teacher would be helping her to learn how to better help lead the class.

The thing which impresses me most about her is her ability to wait for her day to come.  While she was anxious to serve, she was willing to wait.  There are people who have a great calling on their lives for service; but they are not willing to wait for their day.

I’m reminded of a friend who came to me one day with a “word from the Lord.”  In reality, it was a powerful message that she had received.  Put simply, the message was that the Lord was going to use her husband and her to initiate a world-wide revival.  She came to share it with me.  “I will make this happen,” she proclaimed with a great deal of force and conviction.  “Her husband had told her that if the message was truly from the Lord, He would make it happen and that they should wait for Him to bring it to pass.”

She was furious with her husband; and she was sure that she had to make this great revivial happen.  Several times during her visit, she repeated, “I will do anything I have to.  I will make this happen.”  Her end was extremely sad.  She began meeting with men at motels for “ministry.” After a couple of years, she left her husband and teenage children and went on the road to pursue her “world-wide revival.”

A broken man, her husband (you would probably know his name if I mentioned it) left our community and moved back to his home country.  He was never reconciled with his wife.  My husband and I lost contact with him and his family.  More than ten years ago, I heard about a massive renewal which originated in his hometown.  When I asked the name of the pastor, I wasn’t surprised to hear that her husband and our friend was leading this renewal.  Immediately, I remembered the prophetic message that his former wife had received.

For me it sealed the need for all of us to “wait on the Lord” to fulfill the desires of our hearts.  Marcy was willing to wait though it was hard.  In turn, God has given her far more than she ever thought to ask of Him.  The husband of my friend also had the wisdom to wait.  The Lord uses him in such mighty ways that it would be impossible to imagine that he would be used in this way.

Waiting is always hard.  Yet, God desires that we put the brakes on our natural impatience and wait.