Stop Waiting for Perfect
The opportunity you’ve been praying for may not arrive without resistance. Sometimes favor doesn’t look like everything going right. Sometimes it looks like God giving you just enough room to move.
There’s a version of life most of us are waiting for.
The bills are handled. The family is good. The body feels right. The opportunity finally makes sense. Nobody is fighting us. Nothing unexpected happens. We wake up with complete clarity about what comes next.
Then, we tell ourselves, we’ll move.
We’ll start the business when we have enough money. Apply for the position when we feel qualified. Have the conversation when we know exactly what to say. Follow the vision when we can see how everything will work out.
We’ll trust God when there’s a little less to trust Him with.
The problem?
That day may never come.
During Totally Blessed, Part 2, Bishop David G. Evans put language to something many of us have experienced without realizing it:
“Opportunity with God is not always perfect. It’s favorable.”
That distinction changes everything.
Because if you have been using perfection as proof that God is in something, you may have walked past some of the very opportunities you asked Him to send.
FAVOR DOESN’T ALWAYS FEEL LIKE FAVOR
We tend to imagine favor as an easier road.
The interview goes perfectly.
The right person calls.
The money appears.
The doctor gives us the report we wanted.
The relationship gets easier.
The door swings open so widely that there can be no question: God did this.
Sometimes that happens.
But Scripture introduces us to another kind of favor.
Joseph was favored and betrayed.
David was anointed and hunted.
Moses was called and resisted.
Paul was chosen and shipwrecked.
Even Eden — a place created by God Himself — had a serpent in it.
God’s presence in a situation has never guaranteed the absence of opposition.
That’s why one statement from Bishop Evans’s message lands differently:
“You want favor, but you don’t want opposition.”
Maybe we’ve misunderstood favor.
Favor isn’t always God removing everything standing against you.
Sometimes favor is God giving you an advantage that opposition cannot cancel.
The resistance is real.
But so is the hand of God.
THE DANGER OF “WHEN”
There is one word capable of delaying a surprising amount of life:
When.
When things settle down.
When I have more money.
When I’m more confident.
When my schedule clears.
When I’m completely healed.
When they finally understand.
When I’m not afraid anymore.
When God gives me another sign.
There is wisdom in preparation. There is wisdom in waiting. And there are absolutely seasons when God tells us not to move.
But waiting can also become fear wearing responsible clothes.
Ecclesiastes 11:4 describes the person who watches the wind and never sows. If every condition has to be right before you begin, you may never begin.
At some point, faith has to ask a harder question:
What if I already have enough to take the next step?
Not enough for the next 20.
Just the next one.
Bishop Evans described God’s favor as an opening.
Not necessarily a wide-open highway with every obstacle removed.
An opening.
A crack.
Enough room to get in.
And maybe we keep asking God to tear down the entire wall while He’s pointing to the opening He already made.
WHAT IF GOD IS WAITING, TOO?
We say it often:
“I’m waiting on God.”
Sometimes that’s exactly what we’re doing.
Other times?
We may be waiting on God to do something He is waiting on us to believe Him enough to do.
“We’re not waiting for God. God is waiting for our faith.”
Faith, in Bishop Evans’s teaching, is not merely something you possess.
It does something.
You can believe you’re capable and never apply.
Believe God gave you an idea and never build it.
Believe a relationship needs repairing and never make the call.
Believe you’re supposed to serve and never show up.
Believe God answered your prayer and continue living as though He didn’t.
Belief that never affects behavior eventually becomes difficult to distinguish from unbelief.
James puts it plainly: faith without works is dead.
Faith has feet.
Eventually, it moves.
THEN COMES THE WAIT
Moving is one challenge.
Waiting after you move is another.
You prayed.
You obeyed.
You did what you knew to do.
And…
nothing.
At least nothing you can see.
This is where faith becomes less glamorous.
It’s easy to testify after the breakthrough. It’s much harder to trust God on a random Tuesday when the prayer still hasn’t been answered.
That’s when the mind starts talking.
Maybe it isn’t going to happen.
Maybe I misunderstood God.
Maybe they chose someone else.
Maybe the report won’t change.
Maybe this isn’t going to work.
Bishop Evans admitted something refreshingly human during the message: there are times when waiting on God makes him anxious.
Then came one of the most practical statements of the sermon:
“You can feed your anxiety or you can starve it.”
That doesn’t mean pretending difficult emotions aren’t real.
It means being careful about what we continually give them to eat.
WHAT ARE YOU FEEDING?
Philippians 4 tells believers not to be anxious, but it doesn’t end there.
Pray.
Ask.
Give thanks.
Then deliberately think about what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely and worthy of praise.
There is a strategy hidden inside the Scripture.
You don’t defeat every anxious thought by arguing with it.
Sometimes you starve it by feeding something else.
Bishop Evans drew a distinction between praying with complaint and praying with thanksgiving.
Both prayers may mention the same problem.
But they come from different postures.
One says:
God, I don’t understand why You still haven’t done this.
The other says:
God, I don’t understand what You’re doing, but thank You that You’re still working.
Same uncertainty.
Different diet.
One keeps rehearsing the problem.
The other keeps remembering the character of God.
DON’T STOP AT AMEN
Perhaps the hardest part of prayer isn’t saying amen.
It’s what happens afterward.
Jesus says in Mark 11 to believe that what we have asked for in prayer has been received.
That’s uncomfortable because we prefer the opposite order.
See it. Then believe it.
Faith says:
Believe God. Then keep believing while you wait to see it.
Bishop Evans captured the tension in one sentence:
“I can’t stop believing after I say amen.”
Amen doesn’t mean the battle for your thoughts is over.
The email may still not have arrived.
Your circumstances may look exactly the same tomorrow morning.
The person making the decision may not even know your name yet.
The door may appear closed.
But if your faith only survives when evidence supports it, evidence — not God — has become the source of your confidence.
Sometimes the deepest expression of faith sounds remarkably ordinary:
I still believe.
THE BLESSING IS STILL ON YOU
There was another declaration in the message worth carrying into Monday morning:
“Stuff goes haywire, the blessing is still on me.”
Read that again.
Because life has a way of making us interpret temporary circumstances as permanent identities.
A bad financial season whispers, You’re failing.
A rejection says, You’re not chosen.
A setback says, You’re behind.
A closed door says, Nothing is working.
But one difficult chapter doesn’t get to rewrite everything God has spoken over your life.
Look backward for a moment.
Think about what should have taken you out.
The seasons you didn’t know how you’d survive.
The doors you couldn’t open yourself.
The prayers God answered differently than you expected.
The moments you thought were endings that somehow became beginnings.
You have evidence.
As Bishop Evans told the congregation:
“If you look at your life and see what God has brought you through, you already have proof that the blessing is on you.”
Sometimes the testimony isn’t what you’re waiting for God to do next.
Sometimes the testimony is that you’re still here.
MAYBE IT’S ALREADY FAVORABLE
Perhaps you’re standing in front of something right now that doesn’t look the way you imagined.
There’s an opportunity — and a complication.
A promise — and a delay.
A calling — and insecurity.
A prayer — and no visible answer yet.
You keep asking God to make the situation clearer.
Cleaner.
Easier.
Perfect.
But maybe perfect isn’t coming.
Maybe it was never supposed to.
Maybe the better question isn’t:
Is everything finally going right?
Maybe it’s:
Has God given me enough room to move?
Because favorable doesn’t mean effortless.
Favorable doesn’t mean painless.
Favorable doesn’t mean there won’t be another storm.
It means that somewhere in the middle of everything that could work against you, God has created an opening that still works for you.
So pray.
Pay attention.
Look for the opening.
And when you recognize it, don’t spend so much time staring at everything that’s wrong that you miss what God has made possible.
You may not need another sign.
You may not need every question answered.
You may not need perfect conditions.
You may simply need enough faith to catch the wind.
TOTALLY BLESSED, PART 2
Bishop David G. Evans | Bethany Church
“Don’t wait for perfect conditions to move in faith. Favorable is what you’re looking for.”
