Episode 80 - Good things come to those who wait!

Are you familiar with this phrase? The Lord promises that he will come through. We know this because he is faithful. We need to put our trust in him. We need to hope in the Lord. Because "good things do come to those who wait!"

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Paul, Welcome to Catholic money talk, where we talk about all things money and finance, and we try to do it through a lens of being Catholic, where our ultimate goal is to one day be in Heaven with the Lord. I am your host. Paul Scarfone, thank you for being here today. Welcome back to Catholic money talk. Today, I want to talk about a phrase that many of us are probably familiar with, and that is good things come to those who wait. But before we do that, let's say a prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen, Heavenly Father. We thank you for this day. We thank you for all the ways that you love and bless us, Lord, we thank You for this season of Lent in which we get to turn our hearts to you, remembering the great sacrifices that you made for us, Lord God, that you carried out our awesome plan of salvation to bring us to you. Thank you, Lord, for conquering death and all that keeps us from you. Lord, bless us in particular with all the situations we might find ourselves in, Lord, we know that you have a great plan and that you love us so much allow us to yield to your Holy Spirit. We ask all this in Jesus name, amen, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Amen. So good things come to those who wait. Boy, I feel like I've heard that a lot when I was a little kid, probably being impatient because I wanted something, right? Maybe it was my turn with a toy or a game, if you're right, at a playground, or maybe it was, I don't know, some edible treat, a snack, a dessert, ice cream, whatever it was, right that I was lacking patience for maybe I had to wait in line and my parents or maybe other adults around me would say, Paul, you have to be patient. Good things come to those who wait. Well. When we look at things in our life, and we'll talk about our financial life here, we need to remember that as well. Good things come to those who wait. We might have some big goals that are in front of us that we're trying to tackle. Maybe we're waiting for a new opportunity. Maybe it's a job, maybe it's for a home to go on sale that we're waiting for a home to come on sale that's finally in our price range, or maybe it's some other opportunity. Maybe it's a bill we're trying to pay off, or a savings goal that we're getting close to, and we know that we have to be persistent in our efforts, right, diligent in our efforts. As we wait and the good things will come, we'll arrive at that goal which we've been working towards, right? We'll find that opportunity we've been searching for, that we've been waiting for, but waiting is hard, and sometimes, you know, God has a great plan. There's been times in my life where maybe it was a job I really wanted, or a house. I remember many situations, a house that we really wanted, we trying to find a house. We make an offer, and it doesn't get accepted, and we go, oh man. And then a couple weeks later, another house that's even better comes on the market, and we're able to get it right. So the Lord's always looking out for us and working to help us achieve our goals. But waiting can be hard, especially when we don't understand the plan. And I think for myself, as I reflect on this Lent, what are some of the things that the Lord's been putting on my heart and working with me this Lent and waiting, waiting on him, that's a big one. So it was a couple weeks ago I put my my two little guys to bed, and I had just read them their story, and I was sitting there and I was just pondering a few different situations in my life where I am waiting for the Lord to act. I'm waiting for him to show up and fix something I'm I'm actually waiting for him to do what I want him to do. Right? Let me say it like that. I don't like waiting for the Lord to do the things that I want him to do, because I know what's best, right? I know what he should be focused on, what he should be working on, and I don't like waiting for him to do the things that I want him to do. Then, as I was saying this to Lord, and I thought, You know what, I've got a few extra moments here. I need to have some more prayer time, because I'm really wrestling with this. I'm exhausted and tired of waiting for the Lord, so I grabbed my Bible, I grabbed my prayer journal, and that's I was writing down a few things. I started writing my prayer journal. I said, Lord, I'm so tired. I am so tired. I am weary. I'm waiting for you. I'm waiting and I'm exhausted. I just need you to do the things that I need you to do, and immediately I just felt like the Lord led me to Isaiah, 40, verse, 30. So what does that say? Though young men faint and grow weary. You and youth stagger and fall. They that hope in the Lord, will renew their strength, and they will soar on eagle's wings. They will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint. So let me read that again. Isaiah, 40, verse, 30, though young men faint and grow weary, and youth stagger and fall, they that hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on eagle's wings. They will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint. And I've heard that differently at times. And I think I've got a shirt, a printed shirt my wife would give me that says they that wait on the Lord will renew their strength, right? And I think hoping in the Lord and waiting on the Lord, they mean the same thing in the sense of, there's a trust that we must have in the Lord, that the Lord will come through. And when I look back at my life, right? I mentioned the the house, and there's been jobs and different things, I can see all those moments where he did come through, and I need to, I constantly need to be reminded of that, that he is so faithful, so that I can continue to trust him. I need to trust him. So in that moment, I said, Lord, you know, I'm so exhausted, I'm so weary, I'm so tired for you to do the things that I think you should be doing, and you're not doing them, and I can't take this anymore. And then he reminds me of that scripture verse. It was a day or two later, I was meeting with my spiritual director, father, John, and I mentioned this to him, and he immediately says, oh, Paul, we just had a reading at mass about this. He pulls out his Bible, and he opens up, I think it was Sirach two, verse 10, and he looks at me, he says, Paul, reading from his Bible. Have you ever hoped in the Lord and been disappointed? And I look at him like, yeah, all the time. And he said to me, then you're not hoping in the Lord. Wow. That hurt, right? He said, Have you ever hoped in the Lord and been disappointed? I said, Yes. And then he said, but then you're not hoping in the Lord, and it's so true. Right? In the moment, I didn't want to talk to him anymore, right? I didn't want to hear that. I don't want to hear that I'm wrong, but it's so true. I wasn't hoping in the Lord. Instead, I was hoping in the things that I wanted him to do. I was hoping in my own expectations for what I think is best for me and for my family and for the community that I live in and for so many others around me. But instead, I need to hope in the Lord. I need to wait for him. I need to trust that he has a perfect plan to get us all to heaven, right? All the people I care about, all of you listening, right? We need to trust that he has a perfect plan. Why? Because he does. He does have a perfect plan. That's why He created us. I talk about this. He created us to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this life so we can be happy with him forever in the next that's his plan for us to get to heaven, and he's constantly working that plan, even when we mess it up, right? We're reminded in Romans 828, we know that he works all things to the good for those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose. So as long as we're trying our best to seek His will, even when he mess when we mess up, he's gonna work all those things to the good for those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose. He's trying to get us to heaven. He's constantly working on that. So we need to trust that he's got a plan. We have to wait on the Lord. We have to have patience. We have to have patience. Shortly after my conversation with my spiritual director a couple weeks ago, I was in at mass, and I was praying, and all of a sudden I started thinking of the story of the story of the prodigal son, and it wasn't part of the mass readings for the day, but the thought the story just came to my mind as I was praying about waiting on the Lord and and I know for many of us, right, we went to a mass where they were doing the second scrutiny, for the the folks making their sacraments at at at Easter. But for everyone else, fourth Sunday of Lent year, see was the prodigal son. The story the prodigal son. So this is kind of timely talking about this, but I was praying and in the at mass, and the story of the prodigal son came to my mind, and I've heard it so many times. I. Heard it preached on I've heard different reflections right of the story, and many times I might find myself relating to the younger son, or maybe sometimes it's the older son. But this Sunday, as I was praying, I was thinking about the father, the father who was waiting for his son to return, and how long he waited. So in my mind, kind of how I see the story. I imagine when his son was leaving, the father walked his son down the driveway, right with with half of his whole estate, right that he gave to him. And, you know, side note, his father must have been so wealthy, right to think he gave his son half of everything he owned, and the dad still stayed in the house and on the property and still had a fatted calf and other servants, so he gave him halfway like this was a very wealthy dad, I think of what his personal financial statement must have looked like. He gave everything he owned to his son, right, half of everything he owned to his son, and his life didn't change. I mean, if I gave half of what I own away, I would have nothing, right? I'd be sitting in a house with no money and no cars and whatever, because our house is so much of our, you know, our personal financial statement. So I'm just thinking about the vast amount of wealth that this father gave his son, and he walks him down the driveway and says goodbye to him and doesn't move right? In my mind, this is the story he watches him leave. How long, right? All this wealth that the son took? How long did it take him to burn through all of that? And it wasn't even just when he burned through it, right? He also then even tried to get by on his own, feeding pigs, right working for the swine farmer. So how long did it take for him to come home? But as I was thinking, his father walks his son down the driveway, sees his son leave, disappears in the distance, and I don't think he ever left the end of the driveway. I think he just stood there, waiting, waiting, waiting with great hope, trusting that one day his son would return to him right, just like God the Father does for us. So this father waited. Do I have that patience? Can I wait and all those things that I want to see, you know, turned around or resolved, whatever the situations might be, whether they're spiritual, physical, financial, mental, any of them, I'm waiting for the Lord to fix them, to correct them. Again, putting my own solutions of what I think he needs to do to the side. I need to just trust that he has an awesome plan and just wait. Can I have the patience of that father in the prodigal son? A couple of months ago, I was on a retreat, a great retreat, I think I shared a little bit about it, and as I was preparing this podcast, one of the lines from the retreat came back to me as I was talking about waiting and just praying, about waiting and having patience and and I think this line, it's so appropriate, particularly with us being in this season of Lent as we approach, as we approach Holy Week in a couple weeks, and all the, All the the suffering that the Lord went through, the story of the passion. And there was a question that was posed to us on this retreat. Here's the question, what's the difference between Judas and Peter? Peter had the patience to wait three more days. Oh, do I have the patience to wait three more days in those areas of my life that I feel so challenged, but those situations just they seem like they need fixing right now, but the Lord hasn't forgotten about it. He hasn't right. Judas and Peter, they both betrayed. They both denied Jesus. They both hated themselves for what they did. But Peter had the patience to wait three more days, and it was glorious. It was so good. It was worth the wait, and sometimes we just can't understand what's going on. We just have to trust and we just have to wait. As I'm saying this, I'm reminded there's I have a friend, he sends me this link, like every year there. It's a great sermon from 1973 It's Billy Graham, and he's preaching on a line from Habakkuk. And you know, Habakkuk was saying something to Lord, like, where are you? Have you forgotten about us? What the heck is going on? And Habakkuk says, like, I'm not going to tell you what I'm doing, because you wouldn't believe me. And so Billy Graham just starts preaching on this. And he says. If God told us what he was doing, we wouldn't believe him, right? If God told us what he was doing in the world today, it doesn't matter if it's 1973 or 2025 if God told us what he was doing in the world today, we wouldn't believe him, because we don't understand. We can't see, His ways are not our ways. His ways are so far above our ways. He would they would blow our minds, right? And as I spoke earlier, I know I can fall into this trap that I know exactly what the Lord needs to do, and I'm waiting for him to do it. But that's not right. That's not what's happening. I need to come to the Lord in great humility and trust, full of hope that he has an awesome plan, and he's about that plan. He's working to fix everything. And if he told me what he was working on, it's so great, I probably wouldn't even believe him. If God told us what he was doing in the world today, we wouldn't believe him. And so with that sense of hope, right that that hope that st Peter had just the patience for waiting three more days, that hope that we experience the strength that we experience when we hope in the Lord and remember his faithfulness to us, we don't grow faint. We don't grow weary when we have that patience of waiting like the father and the prodigal son, right? So using these very I'd say they're kind of practical spiritual guides, these encouragements as we approach these situations. Again, here on Catholic money talk, we talk about financial things, and, you know, I opened up with the podcast that there's probably some financial situations in your life, right? Some circumstances that you're waiting for them to change. Maybe it's an income thing, maybe it's a debt thing, maybe it's a job thing, a home thing, different goals that we might have, or maybe it's some other challenge or a different situation that we're waiting to be resolved, just so you can move on to the next thing. Right? It's just taking so long and it's so exhausting and you're growing so weary. I would encourage you to pray and reflect on Isaiah 40 verse 30, that hoping in the Lord he will renew your strength. Be reminded of that patient father and the prodigal son. And as we get to Holy Week, reflect on Judas and Peter. Peter had the patience to wait three more days. So this is some of the journey that I'm on. This Lent learning to be patient, to be humble, to submit to the Lord's plan and to wait patiently on him with great hope and with great trust. Because I know, I know he has an awesome plan for all of us. So good things come to those who wait on the Lord. So as we wait for our lent to finish, and we approach Holy Week and the joy that we are met with in Easter, in this particular Jubilee Year of hope, let's learn to hope in the Lord, to wait on Him, because He will never let us down. We need to trust that he has a great, great plan for us because he does so. I hope this has been an encouragement to you this day. I hope that this has been helpful. Thank you for joining me today. God bless. Thank you for listening to Catholic money talk. I hope you join us again next time, please click Subscribe in your podcast app to get notified of new episodes. God bless you and have a great day. You.