How do you handle holding patterns?

How do you handle the delays between God’s promises and their fulfillment?

How do you cope when you’re enjoying a sweet fellowship with the Lord and then heaven suddenly goes silent, and no matter what you do, you can’t break through to the other side?

These moments of divine delay reveal who we are on the inside. They show us the authenticity of our faith, and they expose the true benchmarks of our character.

They break us…or they make us. And just as our favorite Bible heroes taught us, how a person handles their holding patterns determines whether or not they’ll land in safety.

• Abraham was delayed in barrenness.
• Moses was delayed in the wilderness (twice).
• David was delayed in the cave.

And yet their divine delays teach us a powerful truth about God: He knows the way through the wilderness, and He knows how to get people to their destinations.

You’ve been delayed in your story too, and you might need to remember today that God has not lost sight of you. He doesn’t need a compass or a GPS to find you. He has His eye on you, and He is still determined to bring you to all of your appointed ends.

Remember what the Lord told the prophet Habakkuk when he was spiraling in a holding pattern. His words will help you survive your divine delays too. God said, “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” (Habakkuk 2:2-3 NKJV)