“Blessed is the man who listens to me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at the posts of my doors.” (Proverbs 8:34)
When our three children were born back in the 1970’s the husband and future father was not permitted to be in the actual delivery room when the time came for the baby to be born. We were escorted to The Waiting Room to sit with the other expecting fathers and any supporting casts until the doctor or nurse would call the next name! In the meantime … it was wait and wait and wait some more with the exception of one of ours who came before I could barely get the car parked!!!
It probably wouldn’t take long to call the roll of folks who enjoy waiting, whether it is at a stoplight, in traffic, or on the tee much less in a doctor’s clinic! It is very simply not what we want to do even if we know we will be getting what we’re waiting for.
Waiting on God can be one of the most difficult things a child of God must come to grips with. The inspired writer Luke tells us in Acts 1 that Jesus had instructed His apostles to “wait” in Jerusalem. Imagine the thoughts … the questions …and the anticipation accompanied by the obvious anxiety of not knowing what was coming next. It had to be at a fever pitch.
Waiting on God can be one of the most important and relevant decisions that a child of God can learn to become comfortable with! We have a real tendency to want to ‘help’ God out. We want to ‘speed’ the pace of things up. Learning to wait on God’s timeline enables us to mature and develop into what God wants us to become. This character trait is one among many that is evident in the life of David (See 2 Samuel 7:18).
It would be the prophet Isaiah who would express it this way in Isaiah 40:31, “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength …”
Our cultural view of waiting for most anything to that of everything is not in step with the Biblical view of waiting. Consequently, we are becoming more and more impatient in every aspect of our living, including our faith and trust in Jehovah God!
Not surprisingly, our Creator “understands our frame,” because He made us and He speaks frequently in His inspired and revealed Word about the place of waiting. Even as it was in the Old Testament when God’s people found the need to wait on God’s timeline of events, so it is in the New Testament and for us as we must wait:
- Waiting for answers to our prayers in His way as He sees our hearts and needs.
- Waiting for wisdom and discernment to make better choices, decisions and judgments.
- Waiting for change to take place in our own lives, the lives of our spouse and our own children.
- Waiting for the Lord to return to judge this world and take His own home to Heaven.
Patience is called for in chaos, in conflict, in illness and even death, whether it be the death of a loved one, friend, or one’s own impending death! Death will come and it will present itself on God’s schedule, not ours! The wise man Solomon proclaimed, “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.” (Ecclesiastes 7:8)
So, as we make our journey through life, the bumps, turns, curves, flats and stops and starts, we must remember that patience is actually the companion of humility, the enemy of our pride! Our God is most glorified and pleased with each of us when He looks into our hearts and sees in our lives that we are satisfied and content in Him! He alone is sovereign, we are not!
Folks our all-knowing God already knows where our future will take us whether we choose to follow Him or the call of the world. The unwanted and inconvenient times when confronted by the realization that ‘waiting’ is needed can actually become opportunities to refocus our hearts, minds and lives on Him. He is greater than all of our problems and greater than the enemy of our soul who wants to destroy us!
Bill Fairchild, Jr.
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