Waiting on God - Day 14

Read: Psalm 40

I waited patiently for the Lord; 
And He inclined to me and heard my cry.
He brought me up out of the pit of destruction,
Out of the miry clay,
And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.
He put a new song in my mouth,
A song of praise to our God;
Many will see and fear
And will trust in the Lord.
Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which You have done,
And Your thoughts toward us;
There is none to compare with You.
If I would declare and speak of them,
They would be too numerous to count.
v. 1-3, 5

Many people have told me that patience or "suffering" for God will build character. All those trials and hard times that I've gone through, its just making me better at waiting on God. In some ways I think this is true, but in other ways, I'm not so sure. Someone else told me "Suffering doesn't build character, it brings out character that you already have." I think I like her way of saying it better. I'm not saying that there is nothing to be learned during suffering and hard times, but I think that God brings out the character we already have, and either makes it stronger, or changes it during that time.
"True patience is so foreign to our self-confident nature, it is so indispensable in our waiting upon God, it is such an essential element of true faith, that we may well once again meditate on what the Word has to teach us. True patience is the losing of our self-will in His perfect will."

Challenge: How has God rewarded you as you waited patiently? 
I think one of the hardest things to remember is that patience is not a gift that we have naturally. It is God's gift to us. I have the tendency to try to keep things in my control. To have everything in its neat little organized box. But that isn't how God wants it to be. When I'm getting frustrated because things aren't going "my way" I stop and remind myself that God is seeing the big picture. I'm only seeing the puzzle pieces.

Someone yesterday was saying that the phrase "Let Go and Let God" was one of the stupidest phrases she had ever heard. "If I'm hanging off a cliff, why would I let go and then complain to God that I fell?" How about letting go and trusting God to have a net there to catch you.

There are so many ways that God has rewarded me. In big things and small things. One of the smaller things happened just yesterday. A few weeks ago I bought a new bed and moved everything to my new place. The only problem was, I didn't want to spend 70+ dollars on a bedding set. But I knew exactly the kind/style that I wanted to match my headboard. So I've been searching the various stores and places online for the past few weeks. No such luck. An hour before I was supposed to leave and come back to college yesterday, my mom says "hey there are two comforter sets advertised in the newspaper, why don't you call?"
Well, I called, and the older lady that answered described them as burgundy. I was thinking.... purple... this could possibly work... but I had wanted blue originally. I meet up with them, and the first comforter set is bright red with cold tassels. Not exactly my idea. Then he pulls out the second one. Its light blue and tan with the entire set included. All for a whopping $30.
I got home and was showing it to my mom and we realized the price tags were still on the wrapping. The original price was over $200.
God Rewards.