Wait

Sometimes the hardest word to hear is “wait.”  We live in a fast-paced society.  Fast-food, instant downloads, next-day air shipping, instant microwave meals…we wait for nothing. 

But God has told us over and over in His Word to wait on Him.

He has plan for our lives, and He has purpose for all things that we go through.  Your period of waiting is preparing you for what’s coming next.

That doesn’t make waiting any easier.

As you read through the Bible, you’ll notice time and time again that God’s people have struggled with waiting on Him. 

Abraham and Sarah didn’t wait on God, and they took matters into their own hands.  The result of their impatience was the birth of Ishmael and the beginning of a time of turmoil and fighting that will never cease. 

Jacob didn’t wait on God, but deceived his way into receiving the blessing of his father.  Then, the deceiver was deceived by Laban at his wedding, when he was given Leah instead of Rachel and had to work for an extra seven years to marry his true love.  His misfortune pitted sister against sister and brother against brother as his wives and children fought for his love and attention.

In all this, even in their disobedience, God had a plan.  And God worked all things out for their good (Romans 8:28).  But if they had just waited on Him in the first place, they could have spared themselves so much pain and heartache.

We know this!  We have their example to learn from, yet we do the same things they did.

We get fed up and impatient like Moses.  We say things we shouldn’t like Miriam.  We allow doubt and fear to control us like the spies that went into the Promised Land.  We give our hearts away to deceivers and liars like Samson.  We become bitter like Naomi.

Where are the people of faith?  Where are the Josephs and the Joshuas and the Ruths of this generation? 

God doesn’t want us to pretend that we have it all together.  He wants us to come to Him just as we are, broken and open and honest.  He wants us to pour out our hearts to Him like Hannah.  When we do, He will make us strong and courageous like Abigail.  He will take what is small and weak (David) and He will make it mighty!

But for Him to do these things, we MUST wait on Him.  When we wait on God, He has promised to make us “like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bring[s] forth…fruit in [its] season” (Psalm 1:3).  He has promised that He will hear us when we call out to Him (Psalm 4”1-3).   He has promised to be a refuge for us and to protect us in our times of trouble (Psalm 9:9-10).

God doesn’t have to do any of those things for us, but He does them.  He loves us that much.  How could we forget that He has good things planned for us?  After all, He is the Creator of all good things.  James 1:17 says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift come[s] from above, from the Father of lights”, and Psalm 37:9 says “those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth”.  If we wait on Him, He will bless us.  If we wait on Him, He will “renew our strength” (Isaiah 40:31).  If we wait on Him, He will “incline unto [us] and [hear our cries]” (Psalm 40:1). 

Waiting is hard, but if we don’t wait on God, we end up following the wrong road and we lead ourselves to pain and heartache.  Proverbs 28:25-26 warns us that we must not trust our own hearts and our own desires, but that we must wait on God’s instruction.  Without His guidance and His help, we will perish (Proverbs 29:18), but if we put our trust in Him, we will be safe (Proverbs 29:25).

Struggling with patience didn’t end in the Old Testament days.  The disciples struggled with waiting on Jesus.  They often didn’t understand what Jesus was trying to teach them, and there are lots of times that they didn’t understand His timing.  But Jesus taught that we should trust in Him, even when His ways don’t seem to make sense to us.  “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” he asked the disciples (Matthew 6:27).  In other words, worrying profits you nothing, so stop worrying and WAIT ON ME! 

Later, in the same sermon, Jesus told the people to “seek…first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).  When we’re waiting on God, we must seek His will.  If we fill our time with worrying and trying to force our plans into action, we’ll miss out on all the joy that God has for us.  Instead of focusing on ourselves and the things we want, we should focus on God.

This doesn’t mean that we can’t have dreams.  Jesus encouraged us to have big dreams and to make plans for our futures.  He wants us to be good stewards of the gifts and talents that He has blessed us with, and He wants  to have goals for our lives.  He even said, “Ask, and it shall be given [to] you; seek, and [you will] find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matthew 7:7).  We can ask God to bless us.  Hannah did.  Joseph did.  David did.  Daniel did.  Jabez did.  JESUS did!  But if we ask, we must be willing to WAIT.

What are you waiting for? 

A college acceptance letter?  The perfect job?  A person to share your life with?  A child?  Healing?  Courage?

Whatever it is that you want, ask God for it.  Come to Him with an open heart and tell Him what you want.  He may say “yes.”  He may say “no.”  And He may say “wait.”

But whatever His answer, know that He has the best things planned for you!  He is trying to help you, protect you, and make you more like His son.

In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul talked about a “thorn in the flesh” that he struggled with.  He asked God repeatedly to remove this struggle from his life, but God replied, “My grace is sufficient for thee:  for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). 

Let God show you His strength.  Let Him prove to you that He is enough.  He will never let you down.

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength:  they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.”  Isaiah 40:31