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Can and Will - Be Patient

 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. (Ephesians 3:20-21)

Can God do whatever it is you need done in your life? I bet almost all of us would say, "Of course he can!" I have to ask the follow-up question - do we really believe that about everything in our lives? I think there are a whole bunch of us (me included) who say those words, but they haven't made it into our hearts and minds totally yet. We 'trust' God for the big stuff, but then we diddle around with bringing him the 'small stuff' we think really isn't all that 'significant' in his eyes. The truth of the matter is that we cannot find one portion of scripture to back up the 'belief' that God isn't going to handle the small stuff!

Whatever it is you need done - think upon those words a bit longer today. Allow them to ruminate in your mind and heart as you go through the routine of whatever it is you have planned for this day. As you get a chance to just stop for a moment, ask God what it is you have been 'holding out on' with him - those things that you really haven't brought to him because you think you have it handled, or that it is too insignificant to bring to him. Then bring it! All that you can imagine, God can do. All that you can ever request, he has the power to accomplish. So, don't hesitate to bring it!

By working within us, through his Spirit, the things we imagine or request - they are done. Will the answer always be as we imagined? No, but if we really step back and take a look at what he accomplished when we gave that thing to him, we might just be surprised to find it was 'handled' a whole lot better than if we imagined! God CAN do anything - so why is it he seems to NOT do that one thing you have been trusting him for in your life? Sometimes we need to have that thing we are trusting him for 'adjusted' a bit. At others, he is taking time to allow something within us to be ready for his actions. There can also be a bit of 'waiting' on his answer because someone else is being 'readied' by God as an instrument who will be involved in the answer to our request. 

We don't always know he is working, but we can trust he is. We don't always know what it is we really want or need, but he does. We don't always understand the wait, but he is working on the inside long before he reveals the thing on the outside. That is probably the hardest part of it for us - trusting him to do the work on the inside when we are so focused on what we want to see on the outside. We don't 'become' overnight - it is a process. Just sayin!

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