So these past weeks I have invested myself in praying for something in particular and when I say invested I mean prayer, fasting, the whole works. Sometime last week I thought God had answered my prayers and I was relieved and ecstatic that now I could finally rest easy until I realized the answer had still not come. And boy was I deflated. The thought of praying for the same thing for even just another day when  I  thought that battle was over just sank my spirit. Have you ever been in a situation where you thought something was over: you thought the healing was going to happen that day, or you were so sure that you were going to get a particular job, or you were convinced in your spirit that this was your month to get pregnant… and it simply did not happen?

This week I read the parable of Jesus turning water into wine and something caught my attention. To give context, Jesus is at a wedding with his mum and the wine runs out. Mary, his mother, tells Jesus of the situation and advises the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do.

Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. John 2:6-7 NIV

What caught my attention was the fact that the jars of water held 20-30 gallons of water and the servants filled each of them to the brim with a total of 120-180 gallons of water! What tiring work that must have been!  It must have looked like a futile job considering that with each gallon, they did not see any change to the water in the jars, it was still water. But they persevered and filled them all to the brim in obedience.

Have you ever gotten fatigued doing something you know God wants you to do or is right for you to do because results/ rewards are not immediately apparent? Have you wanted to throw in the towel, just stop hoping or waiting and say God just do your thing whenever you are ready? Well, there is a lesson to be learned in a sunday school song:

Don’t stop praying the Lord is nigh; don’t stop praying He hears your cry. God has promised and He will do; Don’t stop praying He’ll answer you!

Be encouraged! Keep filling the jars with water (keep praying, keep hoping, keep trusting, keep serving, keep applying for jobs) and when you have filled them all to the brim, wait for God’s move. It will surely come.

Yours truly.