Waiting on God

Waiting has never been my favorite pastime.  My kids would tell you that whenever I asked them to do something, I wanted it done NOW.  This was not a reflection of their laziness, but my impatience.  Who wouldn’t agree that we live in a GOTTA HAVE IT NOW society.  If you want something but don’t have the funds, don’t worry, just get it, you can always finance.  If we need to know something, we pull out our smart phones and Google the answer.  Facebook and Twitter let us know what is happening in our friends’ lives instantaneously.  We don’t like waiting and yet ironically, we often live our lives in a waiting mode: waiting to grow up, waiting to marry, waiting for children, waiting for grandchildren, waiting for retirement, waiting for the next best thing, because somehow we always think the next best thing is going to make life better. 

I often find myself waiting on God - waiting for an answer to prayer, waiting for him to give direction, waiting for him to move in a loved ones life.  Sometimes it seems like God has closed up shop, because nothing is different and my prayers seem to fall on deaf ears.  What do I do?  I take God at his word that he loves me and is faithful and I keep on praying!  What I have learned in times of waiting is that God is always at work behind the scenes, preparing us for his purposes.  First, he uses waiting to work wrong attitudes out of us and then he uses waiting to work right attitudes in to us.

When you are called to wait do you grumble and complain?  Are you jealous when others receive what you have always wanted?  Are you impatient when you don’t have the answers you want right now?  Do you feel the need to take matters in to your own hands?  Sarah and Abraham certainly did.  (See Genesis 15 - 16) God promised an aging Abraham that he would have a child.  Yet ten years later, still no baby.  Sarah knew she was way beyond child-bearing years so she decided to help God out.  The result was a child yes, but not the child of promise.  Ishmael means “man of war”, and this one couple’s unwillingness to wait on God’s timing birthed a war still raging today between the Arabs (the descendants of Ishmael) and the Jews (the descendants of Isaac, the promised child).  When God doesn’t move fast enough in your life are you prone to birth your own “Ishmaels”?

 

God doesn’t need any help from us.  What he asks is for us to trust his will and his timing.  Because life is a journey, always in motion, the waiting times can seem like death.  But waiting on God can purge self-reliance and cultivate humility.  1 Peter 5:6 says to “humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”  Our times are in God’s hand and he is never late.  How many times have you heard someone say that God’s timing is perfect?  Typically, once they have the hindsight to see what the waiting was all about. God doesn’t limit himself within the constraints of our time clock.

When we wait on God we allow him to work for us and how can we not be blessed? When we wait on God we can be sure that his will is being accomplished, not our own.  When we wait on God we gain the strength to stand when others may fall.  When we wait on God we can trust that his appointed time is always the best time.  When we wait on God our faith grows because if God is working the junk out of us there will be more room for Him in us.  If intimacy with God is the price of waiting on Him, isn’t it worth it?