Is your life on hold? Is there something you have prayed over: a person or a circumstance or one of life’s issues… you’ve prayed and prayed --- to no avail?

Then you must be in training, you know working through time trials until you get it right.

Time trials are just that --- trials, trials in life that threaten to undo us. They threaten to crush and destroy because we know we need our prayers to be answered, life’s situations to change, issues to be resolved. As long as we keep running through time trials nothing changes!

Thursdays are my favorite day for many reasons. I only have one more day left in my work week. The weekend begins tomorrow. Thursday nights are my Bible Study night. That is the night all the ladies in my Bible Study meet before study for pizza at our local Italian restaurant. That is where we hash out the week’s trials, issues, and problems.

Mostly we agree each one of us has issues and they all revolved around time trials. One of us is waiting for resolution in her marriage. Another faces the dilemma of a job search. She must put in her time at her new job before she can apply for the job of her dreams- on up the ladder. Another friend is waiting for her son to come home from Iraq. One of us is waiting on results from lab work. She never seems to feel on top of her game. Her health is just not where she would like it to be. Something is wrong. She knows it.

Time trials: trials we face as time marches on. Trials that could resolve themselves if they just would and we wouldn’t have to wait, concentrating on that which weighs upon us.

On Thursday nights we are studying the life of Joshua. You know, Joshua who fought the battle of Jericho. Before he fought that battle, before his wait was over, Joshua had been in a time trial – in the desert. He was one of only two men who left Egypt and also entered the promised land. He had waited and now his wait trials were coming to an end.

For centuries God had told his people about the Land that was theirs, yet they had not lived in that land for 400 years. Now they were moving forward to take the land that was rightfully theirs.

What Land is yours? What are you waiting to conquer? Is it your health, a situation with you work, a broken relationship…?
As we look at Joshua’s life we have learned that he took important steps while he waited. He prepared himself for the moment in time when God answered his prayers and he possessed the Land.

Joshua’s first time trial as he training in waits was to place himself under the authority of a trainer. His trainer was Moses. Joshua grew to become a commander in Moses’ “army.”

What Joshua learned was valuable. He learned from Moses how to walk with God, how to listen to God, and how to obey.

I am learning that God calls me to time trials before He gives me what I need or want. He calls me to His Wait Room to train because He wants me walking with him, listening to Him, and obeying Him.

After all, how on earth am I to experience victory over my “land” if I have no idea how to conquer it, till, it, plant it, or harvest it.

Are you waiting?  Walk with God and

Shine!