Sadly this is something I am well qualified to write about. Maybe you are feeling the same way. Where is God? Why doesn't He take action?

Of all years, 2017 with the 100th anniversary of Fatima and all the other special anniversaries, was filled with expectation of the triumph of Mary's Immaculate Heart. Yet here we are, still waiting for this promise to be fulfilled. What do we cling onto and work towards now?

First we hoped for the year 2000, then we hoped that the Year of the Rosary 2003 would be it, then it was 2008 with the 150 years since Lourdes. Finally we pinned our hopes on 2017, and now renewed deflation is all we have.

It is all feeling more than hopeless. We are told that God knows what He is doing, and that His plans are perfect, and His timing is perfect. That may well indeed be the case, but it sure doesn't feel like it today and it didn't feel like it yesterday either.

Surely the 100 years of our world being the enemy's plaything as disclosed to Pope Leo XIII must be over by now.

There are all kinds of hopes and expectations for 2018 to be the year the enemy gets kicked out from power and God's power starts to visibly reign again.

But by golly, it is hard to believe that we will see this happen when all around us is lacklustre and filled with decay and abandonment. Can God do it? He sure can, but only He can.

But when? When?

I am so very tired of hearing amazing promises after amazing promises and seeing no fulfillment of them, not even a faint flicker of fulfillment of them in my back yard, although I've seen faint flickers in the lives of others.

It is so hard to believe in God's goodness, in His loving tenderness, and in His all-powerful providence when our greatest longings and deepest needs remain unfulfilled – especially when you know He has the power to change our circumstances for the better and to do it in an instant. It is so hard to believe that this delay is the kindest, most loving thing, He can do for us right now.

Will we still seek to serve Him? Probably, there's still no one else who holds out the promise of eternal life.

But will there be anything of us left to resurrect when He decides to act? That's the question.
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May we live to see His answers, His recompense and His power in full. Amen.

Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 26
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Trudging, trudging, trudging, slowly onward we go. This one is an ode to all those who are still in waiting mode.

For the last six months there have been so many promises of breakthrough, increase, acceleration, provision, unforgettable encounters with God, new missions, new authority, abundant harvest, end time revival and astounding joy.

That's a long time waiting if that's all that's been keeping you going and faithful is the hope of seeing these promises fulfilled.

I certainly hope these good things are happening somewhere. I've heard of one big breakthrough, and a few smaller ones, (already recorded in an earlier blog-post) but by and large in my area there's no change and not even a shadow of a change for the better. In fact, in the short term there's a cloud or three on the horizon of worse.

Last night I got excited by an idea, which I thought had great promise. Having run it up the flagpole to see if anyone else wanted to work with me on making it happen, the last time I checked all was silence. On my own it has no chance, with a core group of others it might get just enough momentum to do some real good. If all else fails, I will blog about it tomorrow night in the hope that others can pick up the idea and the vision and run with it.

So let us celebrate the unsung heroes who are trudging:

To all of those going through long and difficult paths in hope of being able to adopt a child, no matter the outcome your generous and persevering hearts do us proud.

To all those going through long, painful and unpredictable court cases seeking justice, your faithfulness and patience do us proud.

To all of those caring for a relative with dementia or with a long term degenerative disease, we salute your sacrifices with grateful hearts, because you show us what true, enduring and tender love really is.

To those of you who battle despair and discouragement every day because opportunities for paid employment that fits your gifts and talents are so few and far between, thank you for battling on and for your witness of perseverance.

To all those who carry the searing pain of infertility, and who refuse to take God out of the equation and seek laboratory intervention contrary to His ways, we salute your courage, your trust and your steadfastness.

To all those carrying the memories of trauma and violence, for whom every day is a struggle to comprehend that kindness and goodness is possible, and who struggle every day to forgive, you are heroes and heroines of greatest valour, and we salute you.

To all those who work so hard, and such long hours, for minimum rewards, you who cook, and clean, and sew, and mow, and drive, and package, and do manual labour, you are the indispensable ones, with deep gratitude we salute your patient endurance.

To all those in aged care facilities, surrounded by monotony and in constant discomfort, who face life with cheerfulness and acceptance, we applaud you and thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your witness of holiness.

To the single mums who chose life for your baby rather than abortion, and who consequently face so many struggles every day, we salute you and honour your sacrificial love and dedication.

To those who have a loved one in prison, and who endure all the hardships, loneliness and humiliations that go with it and who never give up on them, we salute your loving fidelity and we honour you.

To those whom chronic ill health has robbed even the faintest hope of finding spousal love, and whose loving hearts overflow to those few family and friends who can see past the externals to the hearts of true gold that you have, we salute your compassion and empathy towards us and your patience in suffering.
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Your situations may never change, that may not be God's plan. Should those big miracles happen, our shouts of thanksgiving will mingle with yours. But when the time comes the praise and honour and glory given by Him to you in paradise will be worth it. That is a promise you can truly count on.

Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 17
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Coming to you live, yes live, from the doldrums. It has been yet another day when we believe that God has been at work doing amazing things, but of which we have seen and experienced nothing.

I read about an image months ago, of times of transition being like going through a birth canal. On the interior side of the birth canal things are good, but growing and limited. However while the transition through the birth canal is happening, it is uncomfortable, there's no perceptible movement, it's dark, and it feels a whole lot longer than it actually is. Once the exterior side of the birth canal is reached, just about everything changes and feels totally different.

If this is true of our time of waiting for God to reveal His hand, His purpose and His direction, how I wish it were over.

Another image crossed my path this morning, this time of a tsunami. The only intimation that something big is coming is that what was once full of water becomes dry, and as this happens all the junk on the sea floor gets exposed. For a while the unexplained dryness becomes the new normal. The longer the dryness, the bigger the wave of water will be, but in that in-between time absolutely nothing appears to be happening except that everything is harder and takes more effort and yields no results. Only those with long memories know what the missing water signifies, and call for urgent preparations to be made and lookouts to be posted. Everyone else finds the promise of more water than we know what to do with extraordinarily hard to comprehend. But it gets very calm and still before the tsunami actually hits because the birds and the animals know better than we do, and they go and hide and find safe places.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of a day that should have been one of great joy, but instead became one of deep bewilderment and profound rejection. It would be a really good day to see something fresh and new begin, to balance all the other stuff, but at present all the seeds of possibility in my life are either completely dead or so dormant that they look dead.

Maybe you are in the same situation. The only good thing about it is that if change does come it will have only God's fingerprints on it, since at this point only He can bring about any positive change at all.

What can we learn from the two images about what we should do?

In the first one, resistance will definitely make things worse. So acceptance, and patience and trust - and consent to let God do whatever must be done – are about the only things that will help.

In the second one some kind of preparation seems necessary. Apart from doing nothing, the choices seems to be to get as grounded as possible (and find something to hang on tightly to) or to build something ark-like and seaworthy that will float above the turbulence to come. Of course, the really wise would be digging and reinforcing furiously so that as much of the new water to come could be kept as possible.

From the pictures we've seen on the news, the aftermath of a tsunami is chaos. Many existing structures get flattened, there's lots of debris, things look completely different and there's lots of rebuilding to be done while at the same time caring for those who got hurt because they were unprepared.

If God's promises are true, then doing nothing in the face of a tsunami of grace is not a sane option. It is probably why He has been so insistent upon us deepening our relationships with Him. The deeper it is, the more we have to cling to, and the more water we can hold. But at this level of magnitude individual reservoirs will not be enough - groups are needed to build communal reservoirs. Maybe that's why God has also been so insistent upon unity: we need to depth our relationship with Him as communities of faith also – and as communities of communities of faith as well.

It might look like a disaster area for a while when the tsunami of grace finally hits, and some may view it as tragic, but we have to look at the upside. Relationships get built at times of what looks like natural disaster that last for generations. New skills get learned and new levels of co-operation happen and new leaders emerge. And something happens that couldn't happen before, the chance to rebuild and to rebuild bigger and better and more community-friendly than ever before.

Who knows how much time we have left until God turns our worlds upside down? Let's use it wisely and do those sensible things He has been begging us to do; deepening our relationship with Him, and deepening our relationships with others.
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All holy apostles, holy Mother of Jesus, holy women and holy disciples who were present at the first tsunami of grace we call Pentecost, pray for us. Amen.

Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 14
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Are you in the doldrums? Me, too. It is as boring as blazes being in a holding pattern with no hope of change on the horizon. The only thing that keeps me going sometimes is a story I often recall from a little book called 'Lessons from a sheep dog' by Phillip Keller.

The story goes like this, if I remember it correctly. Phillip had to train a sheep dog which had been mistreated by a previous owner. Of all the tasks that the dog was trained to do, the most hated one was staying still and keeping the flock of sheep in place while the master went off to do something else. Obviously the dog wanted to be where the action was, with his master. Conversely it was the most important task the master could give the sheep dog, and truly crucial to the success of the farm, but it really stretched the trust of the dog and the obedience of the dog. If the dog gave up and left its appointed (yet utterly boring) post, very much would be lost and damaged.

The only good part of that story was that the dog got extra rewards and treats if he stayed faithful to the master's task, more than for any other task.

Remembering this might take a bit of the sting of the wait away, but it doesn't take away the tedium. What makes it worse is reading about other people who are in a very happy place in their ministries and seeking signs and wonders from God flow. All of us want to be where the action is.

So this one is going to be a prayer from the pit, begging guidance from the Lord :

Dear Heavenly Father, Your ways are not our ways. For some kind purpose of Yours we sit in obscurity and endure another day of not seeing the gifts and talents you have given us employed in any worthwhile way. We definitely do not understand. Your own Word tells us that the harvest is rich but the labourers are few, and we want to be in the thick of the harvest and here we are on the sidelines feeling unwanted, ignored and useless.

As Newman says, may our perplexity serve You somehow. Surely it should be 'all hands on deck', but we are kicking our heels in the marketplace waiting for You to come and show us where in Your vineyard You want us to work and what You want us to do.

Please don't pass us by. At this point we're ready to do just about anything to get out of the monotony of doing seemingly nothing.

At the same time we are scared stiff that we will miss the moment when you actually call us to something new. When that longed for moment comes, please make it unmistakably clear what You want us to do. No 'in the glass darkly' stuff, but blinking neon lights and dancing girls and signs that the messages are unmistakably from You and You alone.

Inexplicably we are also terrified that You will ask us to do stuff we've never tried before (like walking on water and telling a mulberry tree to go and plant itself in the sea). We are scared that we're going to stuff it all up, and that if we really step out in faith that You won't be there to catch us because You have been so seemingly invisible, inactive and absent for so long.

Like the poor sheep dog that's had to stay at its post far longer than the master originally intended, we're beginning to wonder if we will recognise You when You come at last. We've forgotten what it's like to be at play with You, and to snooze contentedly at Your feet, and to feel your pats and scratches behind our ears.

When Lord will You come?

If it is going to be an agonizing while longer, please send us some encouragement. Every so often the scent of your promises gets carried to us by the wind. We go on the alert for a while, and then settled down dejectedly again at our post. 'Be patient, it will be soon' is wearing thin. What is soon for You could be months or even years away for us.

When Lord will You come?

Do you hear our howls in the night, and our cries and whimpers by day? Sometimes we hear the happy yelps and barks of sheep dogs afar off, praising You, and we confess that we've forgotten how. Then we take stock of ourselves and wonder who would want to be with bedraggled and miserable mutts like us anyway.

Please Lord, do not permit further delays to Your return that will set us free. Amen.

Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 10
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This one's from the depths, because it is not easy to silence the thoughts of 'What if it's all wrong?' For the record, I certainly hope that what the prophets of our day are saying comes to pass, and comes to pass quickly. But that doesn't mean that qualms about whether they are all under a collective delusion are easily extinguished.

It would be so much easier if they were preaching doom and gloom. Because it takes real courage to tell people the truth that they don't want to hear, and consequently it is easier to sift the real from the fake.

However it is a whole different ball game when you start talking about harvest, breakthrough, increase and extraordinary moves of the Holy Spirit. All of us want to see that, and to experience it. This is stuff that we want to believe and want to be true. Who among us doesn't like hearing that the time of sorrow is over, that the time of reward has come, and that God is going to take you out of obscurity and give you a mission?

Because of those desires for good things, true discernment becomes much, much harder – and it is much easier to be led astray by false messages.

There's nothing wrong with waiting for God to move, if He has truly promised it. Many things indeed wait upon His perfect timing. But if He hasn't promised it, we are going to be waiting forever, losing faith as the wait deepens, and not doing the normal things that would generally bring about those outcomes (eg works of service, networking, developing relationships, and getting on with life).

This is why we need to seriously pray for the gift of discernment.

Sometimes it is obvious that a message is full of wishful thinking and a repackaging of other current messages. Drop them off your watch list. If some message cuts to the heart and produces a response filled with the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience etc), then it deserves more careful discernment.

If God is trying to get a message through to you, especially one which requires a life changing decision as a response, then He will be using multiple ways to do it. Should it truly be from Him messages will come from unexpected sources to confirm it.

Even with confirmation of a message, the need for faith doesn't go away.

My own dilemma goes like this. Everything I have initiated over the past few years has ended in spectacular failure, despite lots of prayer, dollars spent and preparation. I've taken it as a pretty clear sign that I've got to wait for God's initiative. But it is soooo hard to do. I prefer to be active and doing something that could make a difference. Thus I am full of frustration and impatience, since there's no sign of any actual Godly initiative on the way.

What if He never comes, and this is as good as its ever going to get?

Part of the frustration is that I can see what needs to be done, and how to get it done. 'Come away does not mean delay' and 'delay does not mean denial' has been extremely hard. Promises abound that all the delays will be miraculously caught up, and that all things will suddenly be right. God can surely do those things. But in the meantime there's a whole cohort of people who aren't being reached out to and evangelised. God can certainly do it, but will He do it, and will He do it in my backyard, and will He let me be part of it?

Only time and prayer will tell.
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When Lord will You come? When will You come with Your right hand and reply? When will Your prophets be shown worthy of belief?