May
2, 2018
I
decided after watching Sue’s video Tuesday, that I would re-write my post. The Lord had me underline “expectantly” in
verse 3 of chapter 5 and I can’t seem to get it out of my head. And who wants to discuss wickedness anyway?
Do
you ever find yourself waiting? Of
course you do. And I have found that
while I wait for God to answer or intervene, I can lose my focus. Waiting on the Lord is all about holding on
tight, hoping with expectation and trust, and knowing that the Lord is not
making us wait just to see how long we can “take it”. How
often have you felt like David and cried out, “I am exhausted from crying for help; my throat is parched and dry. My eyes are swollen with weeping, waiting for
my God to help me.”? Psalm 69:3
I
have found that waiting on the Lord requires two things; 1) a complete
dependence on God and 2) a willingness to allow Him to decide the terms, including
the timing of His plan. Trusting God
with the timing of the events is one of the most difficult things for me to do –
I like to help Him. Let me be candid
here, I have often prayed “Lord, I need patience NOW!”, because waiting can be
so difficult for me. But as I learn to
wait on the Lord, I am learning patience and growing character.
“So let it grow, for when your endurance is
fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.” James 1:4.
And
while we wait we receive a gift from God – the passage of time. According to Dictionary.com, time is the
indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present and
future regarded as a whole.
The
word wait carries the idea of confident expectation and hope.
“Don’t be impatient for
the LORD to act! Travel steadily along
His path. He will honor you, giving you
the land. You will see wickedness
destroyed.” Psalm 37:14
“I wait quietly before
God, for my salvation comes from Him. He
alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will never be shaken. I wait quietly before God, for my home is in
Him.” Psalm 62:1-2, 5.
Waiting
on the Lord should be similar to how we wait for a baby to be born, or long
awaited guests to arrive – with loving anticipation of seeing them. Just look at Psalm 23, as we wait on the Lord
we are at rest. How often do we pray for
rest? I know I do. But just like sheep, we will not rest near
rushing waters, but we will lie down and be content by still water. Being still means we have ceased from our own
agenda and we have stopped trusting in our own strength and will power. We are waiting upon the Lord to exchange our
weakness for His strength.
To
wait on the Lord is to rest in the confident assurance that, regardless of the
details or difficulties we face in this life, God never leaves us without a
sure defense. Just as Moses told the
frightened Israelites trapped at the Red Sea by Pharaoh’s army, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only
to be still.” Exodus 14:14. Our perspective becomes heavenly when we are
not focused on the trouble, but on the Lord and His Word. When it seems like God has painted us into a
corner, we have an opportunity to set aside our human viewpoint, and wait upon
the Lord to show us His power, His purpose and His salvation.
Each
time I chose not to wait on the Lord, trouble always comes. Every time I fail to wait on the Lord and take
matters into my own hands, even when I’m trying to bring about something God
wants, it always leads to problems. We
must remember to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew
6:33), and then we can allow God to work out the rest of the details.
Waiting
on the Lord involves the confident expectation of a positive result in which we
place a great hope – a hope that can only be realized by the actions of
God.
