Willing to Stand Alone While Waiting on God

This episode is a pastoral encouragement for anyone who feels alone while obeying God’s instructions. Drawing from 1 Peter 4:12, Luke 1:80, James 1:2–4, 1 Samuel 16:11–13, and Micah 7:8, the message reminds listeners that God can use hidden and lonely seasons to form strength, maturity, and obedience. Be encouraged: your time alone is not wasted, and there is a rising after this.

Transcript

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Sometimes the hardest part of obeying God is not the instruction itself. Sometimes the hardest part is realizing that for a season you may have to obey while standing alone. Good morning and welcome to this expression of igniting your day. This morning, I believe there is someone the Lord wants to encourage. You used to have someone around you. You used to have a kind of support that made certain seasons easier to be here. But now you are standing alone. There are things happening around you, but what seems to disturb you the most right now is not even the difficulty of what God is asking you to do, it is the fact that you are alone. Let me explain this further. I see that the Holy Spirit has been giving you instructions, is telling you to read certain things, study certain things, and take certain steps. And I see that you are obeying those instructions. You are not really struggling to obey. Your heart is yielded, you are willing, you are following what the Spirit of God is telling you to do. But what troubles you deeply is that you are doing it alone. You are bothered by the fact that you are alone. See, when God is forming a person, there are seasons when he may require that person to obey instructions that others do not understand. There are seasons when he may take a person through phases of life that are difficult to interpret. In such seasons, I appeal to you: be willing to stand with God even when you cannot find a crowd to stand with you. Be willing to continue standing with God. From what I sense, the obedience is already there, the yieldedness is already there. But the encouragement I want to bring to you is this as boring, as painful, or as uncomfortable as being alone may feel, your being alone is useful to God right now. I do not know what led to your being alone, but if this word is for you, I am telling you that your aloneness is being used by God right now. So my encouragement is simple: be willing to stand alone, at least for the time being, so that what God is doing in your life can be perfected. Let the Spirit of God bring you comfort. Let the Spirit of God continue to be your ally. Let the Holy Spirit truly be your comforter. Use this season as an opportunity to improve and advance your relationship with the Holy Spirit. If this word is for you, I say, you already know what I'm talking about. 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 12 says, Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fairy trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you. My dear friend, do not think it strange. Yes, you are alone now. I even sense that you may have been deeply disturbed recently, but you were not necessarily disturbed because of the instructions God is giving you. You are not disturbed because you have to obey instructions. You were disturbed because you are alone. Please receive this encouragement from the word of God. Do not think it strange concerning the fairy trial which is happening to you, as though something strange has happened. I hope this is a word of comfort to you. God sees you where you are, He sees you, and I feel strongly that even if this is all you hear this morning, you have heard what you needed to hear. God sees you where you are. There are three things I want to say about why this season of being alone is valuable. Number one, God forms people before he sends them out or uses them. Right now, what you are seeing, what you are experiencing is the pain. You may be seeing the loneliness, you may be seeing the boredom, you may be seeing the absence of the person you used to talk to, or the people you used to engage. But it may also be that God is forming you and preparing you for the next stage of your assignment. Luke chapter 1, verse 80 says, And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit and was in the desert till the day of his showing unto Israel. The child grew and became strong in spirit. He was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel. Who knows whether there is a particular strength in the spirit that the Lord wants you to have? Who knows whether this season is part of the process by which God is making you stronger? I am here to tell you that your time alone is counting. Your time alone counts. Your time alone is valuable to God and it is valuable to you. Please do not truncate it. This time you are spending alone is not wasted. God is growing you, He is making you stronger in your spirit. Secondly, God uses waiting seasons to produce maturity. Yes, there is a difference between becoming stronger in spirit and becoming mature. In this season, when you look around you and do not find someone to talk to, you are left alone with the Holy Spirit. And who knows, maybe the Holy Spirit has been looking for an opportunity to engage you more deeply even before the things that happened took place. Your spirit is becoming stronger in this waiting season. But beyond that, God is also using this season to produce maturity. James chapter 1, verse 2 to 4 says, My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into diverse temptations, knowing this, that the trial of your faith weth patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire wanting nothing. There is a maturity the Lord is looking for at the end of this lonely season of yours. There is a maturity. By the time this season is completed, there is a kind of spiritual independence that will be found in you. Before now, there may have been certain support you craved before you could stand and do certain things for the Lord. You may have needed someone beside you before you felt able to move forward. But by the time this waiting season comes to an end, it will seem as though all you need is to decide for Jesus. Once you decide for Jesus, you will be amazed at how God helps you get things done for Him. That is part of the maturity, He's working in you now. Number three, your obedience in this obscurity matters to God. Your obedience while you are alone matters. Your obedience while you are in what you feel like is a wilderness matters. Your obedience in this season matters deeply to God. I read, and Samuel said unto Jesse, I hear all thy children. And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him, for we will not sit down till he come hither. And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and witheral, of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brethren. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. Friends, David was found where he was supposed to be. He was keeping the sheep. He was not absent from the place of obedience. He was not trying to force a door open for himself. He was where responsibility had placed him. And when the time came, he was called. I want to say to you, you will still be called upon. Yes, you will still be called upon. You will still be called upon. But what matters now is that you are found where God has placed you. Be found where God has told you to stay. Be found in obedience. Stay there. Obey there. Remain there. You will still be called upon. Your obedience matters. Where God has placed you now. Stay. Obey. Please stay there. I do not know who you are, but this is the word of the Lord for you right now. You are alone. I do not know the full context of your being alone, but I see that you are alone. I also see that you are doing the few things the Spirit of God has been asking you to do. But I also see you are bothered by the fact that you are alone. Maybe your being alone right now is not a separation from a whole group of people. The group of people you used to be with may still be intact, but you may still you may even still have access to them. They may even still come around you, but it looks like a separation from one person. I do not know your context, but this separation has been very hard. Very hard. Still, the message is simple. Be willing to stand alone for a while. Be willing to stand alone until God finishes what he wants to do in you and for you. Let me bring you a word of encouragement from the book of Micah. Yes, the Bible says in Micah chapter 7, verse 8, Rejoice not against me, O my enemy. When I fall, I shall rise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. I say this to you so that you will know that there is a rising after this. There is a rising. Whatever people say will soon be of no effect because there is a rising. When you fall, you will rise. When you sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light unto you. And we join our faith with yours this morning, not only to say that the Lord will be light to you, but to declare that the Lord is light to you even now. The Lord is light to you even now. Yes, the Lord is light to you even now. So I tell you again, there is a rising after this. Do not be afraid of being alone for a while. There is something the Lord is doing in you, and there is something the Lord is doing for you. Why don't you take this moment and say, Lord, I thank you for where I am now. I thank you for where I am now. Because you understand me, because you see me, and because you are not idle in my case. Thank you, Jesus. Wow. Thank you very much, friends, for being here this morning. Just like I said, I do not know what exactly your context is, but I believe that this season in your life is not a waste of time. I am wishing you this morning and I'm leaving the ahead. God bless you.