Season of Waiting - Kenna Tarnowski

Okay, so I feel like every time that people have been speaking this semester or at least just this year I feel like nobody has notes and that is not who I am. I am a note-scal. So I will be looking at my notes a lot while I talk just because if I didn't I would talk forever and you would never go to any of your classes or eat lunch or anything and I would stand up here forever. So for the last two years, I've decided to choose a word of the year and last year my word was peace which served me very well and so much so that I thought it was a good idea to come up with another word for this year and I spent a lot of time talking to those around me talking to people about their words that they were choosing and then I also just spent a lot of time in prayer and trying to figure out like what God was trying to tell me I should focus on for the year and the word that just kept popping up was trust which was terrifying. I was like, "Why do I need to do that?" Like, "Why do I need to focus on that this year?" But it was just so clear. There was no other word that was coming up for me I knew that that was the word that I need to focus on this year and we're only two months in and it's almost laughable because I just feel like God is looking at me and saying, "Do you get why I put this on your heart now?" Like, "Do you get the purpose in this word?" and I do. And I don't know how many of you can relate to me in this, but I'm in this period of like putting full trust in God because I'm just a few short months away from graduating, which is terrifying. And every time someone asks me what my plans are post-graduation I would like to run away and never talk to them again because the truth is I have no idea. And I just have had such a wonderful experience here at York and I've enjoyed the last four years and I've gained these beautiful friendships with people and I just can't even fathom like what life is supposed to look like outside of here and what it looks like when all my friends go are separate ways and I can't see them every day anymore. And to be honest, I don't even want to know what's on the other side because I know it's not me living with my three best friends and staying up way too late talking to them or being greeted by Sean every morning in chapel and hearing him say, "Fine God, fine life." I'm gonna have to have him like record it and set it as my alarm in the morning or something because I don't know I can't live without it. But I'm not quite ready for the time that I have to walk away from all of that and I can only imagine how many of us can relate to not wanting to grow up quite yet or being scared of what the future holds. And I have like five different career options I could choose from right now that are just so incredibly different and none of it seems clear right now. And I just feel like some days I might be spiraling and I think about it too much and I just worry about it a lot and when I am spiraling from all of this I not only focus on the word "trust" as I am for the rest of the year but I focus on waiting, praying and trusting. While I can confidently say that God has a plan for my life that does not just mean that I'm a puppet on a string and he's controlling my every move, I think that's a concept that we as Christians often get anxiety about because if that were true then we would have no control over our own lives and that's not at all what God wants us to do. Instead, the two greatest commandments are love the Lord, hear God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. And at the end of my life I want to know that God's plan for my life all along was to live out those two commandments. No matter where I end up or what career I end up going into, I hope that my life can be reflected using those two commandments as a guide to who I was. As I have been trying to figure out what God wants for me in this transition period of my life, I have been trying to think through Scripture and just what God is trying to say to me through all of that. And there are concepts that have been coming up to me from the book of Acts. And I think Acts just has such a powerful message for us to go through today. And I'm excited to share some of my thoughts that I've pulled out that have really helped me as I have read through Acts. So the book of Acts is about how God changed the world. And Jesus has just risen from the dead and the disciples don't know what to do. But it's the disciples and these apostles and the women and these stories that go out into the world and carry out the faith of Christ across the globe. And I feel like so often I look at these stories and I just wish that I was in that story, I was in that kind of story and live it out because they're such world changing earth shattering stories. And I think they're so cool. And I know for me like I have dreams of changing the world and making a difference and making an impact. And I just always wonder if like that's actually what I'm going to do and when I read stories like this like I'm just so inspired by these people who did exactly that. And so how does Acts start? How do the disciples navigate this period of their lives? And what's the first thing they're told to do? Wait. Acts 1.4 says, "Do not leave Jerusalem but wait for the gift my father promised." But why is it important that we wait? Why are those individuals who are ready to go change the world just like that told to wait? Because they're being shown that there is an important principle that when we have to wait for something we learn to trust. In this we are shown that God's plan is still in full effect and what Jesus has taught them is now coming to fulfillment. They are now in a period of learning to trust God, listen to God and look for God in their time of waiting. And to be honest, I'm really not good at that. I'm a doer, so I'm constantly wanting to do things and like get myself involved in everything which I'm sure a lot of you probably know about me. And I just want to always be moving, which makes things really hard when I'm brought into a season of waiting because I'm like, all right, get on with that. I'm ready to move on to the next thing. And for some of you, maybe you're more of a type A personality and you really don't like waiting because you already made a plan. And now life is not following this perfect plan and you don't know what to do anymore because your plan is not working and you have to enter this season of waiting with no plan. Terrifying. But this principle of waiting is so important for our growth. Just a few verses after the disciples are called to wait, all the men and women join together to pray. They take the instruction to wait and they turn it into a time to turn to God in prayer, which I think is so cool. So I don't know what is next for me and it's scary and uncertain, but I'm trying to figure out what it means to wait. So I take the time to pray and I pray in a lot of different areas of my life whether that's just me sitting alone in my room or in the choir room with the rest of my choir people in meetings or with my friends at home or with my family. Because my desire is to hear the voice of God when he does choose to show me what he wants for my life. How I'm best to glorify him and how I can serve his people. Jumping ahead a few chapters to Acts 12, Peters in prison and the people from his church are back home praying that he will be freed. And in the middle of the night, Peter is approached by an angel of the Lord who leads him out of prison and sets him free. He gets to the house and knocks on the gate and the servant, before even opening the gate, recognizes his voice, knows that it's Peter and she runs inside to the rest of these people that are still sitting in their house and praying in the middle of the night. And she says, "Peter's at the door." And these people who, again, I cannot tell you this enough, they're praying in the middle of the night. They're all talking to each other, they're all praying and they look at this servant who just told them that what they are praying for is true and he's at the door and they look at her and they say, "You are out of your mind." Can you imagine this? Like, are you kidding? When was the last time we all gathered together in the middle of the night to pray over something so fervently? This just shows how deeply they were in prayer for Peter and then he shows up and they're like, "No, he's not here." Even though we were just praying about it, that's crazy, he's not here. How many times can we put ourselves in the shoes of these people in this church? How many times have you prayed and you doubt that God will answer your prayer? How many times have you prayed for something and the prayer has been answered and you still doubt God's goodness and God's faithfulness? Here's the thing, there's a lot of times in Acts where all the people are completely lost and have nowhere to go, like in Acts 16, they're kind of getting ping-ponged all over the place and they don't know where they're supposed to be going or where the spirit is leading them. Or at the end of Acts, when Paul and 276 other individuals were shipwrecked and the soldiers on board were threatening to kill the sailors and prisoners, but ultimately let them go because Paul shared his faith with them and they became Christians. Paul also made his way to the chief officials' house of the island they were wrecked on and healed his sick father and healed every sick individual that was on that island. Talk about purpose. Talk about how God has a plan even in the midst of struggle. Paul was a prisoner during this and he listened to what God was saying to him so he could live out his mission to serve and heal and show the glory of God even through shipwreck. So where are you in the shipwreck? Are you training yourself to listen to what God is saying in the midst of turmoil and hardship? I mean we see Paul literally use the shipwreck to share his faith with these people who are ready to kill him and all of the other people on the ship. Not only this, but he's successful in saving the prisoners' lives and he converts the soldiers that are ready to kill him. How cool is that? I can just see God using this story to show that there's purpose in the difficulty. There's purpose in waiting and in heaviness and the unknown. I just want to take a minute to reflect before I close out on a question that I feel is important to consider when we're in a time of waiting. How often are we asking God to tell us something when we haven't even taken the time to know his voice? I'm going to read that again. Here's what I want to leave you with this morning. God is good when you're in a season of waiting, when the questions are heavy and when you don't fully understand, when the answer to your prayers feels like it's never going to come, his goodness is not based on your current circumstances but on the unchanging character of who he is. Know that even when your world is falling apart or you are in a season of waiting, you can rest in this unchanging truth. God is good and he is still good even when life is not. He is bigger than all of the things we are dealing with. He is holding every moment of our lives in his hands and we should always glorify his name despite our circumstances. So while I stand here, dreaming of making an impact on the world, all I can continue to encourage us to do is wait. Even if it is uncomfortable, pray so we can learn God's voice and trust that whatever He has planned will be better than anything I could ever ask or imagine.