I
had other plans for my blog post today. But when I received a copy of
the sermon which my good friend in Nova Scotia, Pastor Alan, preached
this past Sunday, I was strongly impressed to pass it on to my blog
friends as a Guest
Post. I
believe there is someone out there in my blogosphere whom God wants
to encourage with this post. In fact, I believe most
of us are at
times, if not at this very moment, in some WAITING
mode and feeling the impatience that comes with it.
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
Who of us enjoys the
experience of waiting for something to happen? Most of us can't
stand waiting! We endure it for a while, but sooner or later we grow
frustrated. As someone has said, “Waiting on God is the hardest
discipline of the Christian life.” Are you a discontented,
disgruntled “waiter” or one who delights in God during
the waiting process He leads us through at times?
I LIFE IS OFTEN
WAIT, WAIT, WAIT
We
are scheduled for a doctor's appointment, and arrive only to find we
may be waiting for an hour or more. Some of us are waiting for money
to arrive. I often hear seniors saying, “This is the day the
checks come in. Grocery day today.” It's spring and some of us
have been waiting for it to warm up enough to get our gardens going.
Young people are often anxiously waiting to grow up. And then to have a career. And then to meet Mr. Right or Mrs.
Right. I remember anxiously wondering if I would ever get married
since I did not marry until my early thirties. We spend an awful lot
of time waiting in long lines. In fact, statistics say that six
months of our lives will be spent waiting in lines. Sometimes we
hear the expression, “I'm waiting for my ship to come in.”
If
you fly, you know all about waiting. If we are flying in Canada, we
need to arrive at the airport an hour and a half ahead of the flight,
longer for an international flight. Even then, the flight may be
delayed and the wait will stretch out still longer. Then we are
treated to the experience of waiting out the long flight, followed by
waiting for our luggage to be off loaded.
It's
interesting how much waiting is involved in two of our most popular
sports, hockey and baseball. In baseball, you wait for something to
happen and that can take a while before there is any action. The
game of hockey actually only involves one hour of playing, but that
is extended by all the stops and starts every time the puck goes to
the wrong the place or a rule gets broken.
We
live in a high speed, highly driven culture. You can wake up in the
morning, have instant coffee, instant oats, etc. We can lunch at
MacDonalds where a meal is considered late if food arrives five
minutes delayed. People rush to and fro on city streets, drivers
zooming by honk their horns. The message: “Get out of my way. I
don't like to wait.”
II THE
SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE OF WAITING
Waiting
is a spiritual experience in which God has much to teach us. We're
familiar with the widow in the Bible story who got fed up with
waiting for justice from the judge and pounded on his door in the
middle of the night. This was a parable about persevering in prayer
when God seems slow to answer. We wait for a particular promise from
God to be fulfilled in our lives, for circumstances to turn around
for better. We wait for God to give us victory over bad habits and
lousy attitudes. Christians are waiting for our Lord to return to
earth.
If
you have found yourself waiting on God, you have lots of company.
Abraham and Sarah waited fifteen years longer after God promised
their miracle boy. Moses languished in the Sinai wilderness for
forty years before God called him to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt.
Jesus waited thirty years to begin a three year ministry. Today is
the day of Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, and we are reminded
that the disciples had to wait forty days for the coming of the Holy
Spirit.
Then
there is the experience of heartbreak and hopelessness at the Pool of
Bethesda. The sick and disabled gathered there as it was believed an
angel came down from heaven every so often to stir the water. The
first one into the water would receive a healing. When our Lord
visited the place, He encountered a man who had waited there
thirty-eight long years. Can you imagine how the poor guy felt,
heartbroken and hopeless every time he helplessly watched others
getting to the water before him?
Ever
feel like you are in a holding pattern? That term comes from the
world of aviation. At a busy airport like Toronto, the planes will
be stacked up, told to stay in a holding pattern before taking off or
flying in circles until it is their turn to land. Some of us can
relate to the experience of Israel in the wilderness, wandering in
circles for forty years.
III THE DANGER
OF MISTAKES WHILE WE WAIT
Quite
often, unable to stand the stress of waiting any longer, people make
mistakes. They do not handle waiting well. Some examples:
We
decide to help God, look for a short cut to speed things up. When
baby Isaac was slow to arrive, Sarah told Abraham, “Look, if you
are ever going to have a male heir, you need to sleep with my
maidservant Hagar.” Both Abraham and Sarah knew God had given
them His Word. Both sinned by circumventing that word. Ever since,
the Arab and Jewish peoples have been at loggerheads.
Impatience
causes us to say, “I must do something.” But the Bible reminds
us, “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in
vain.” Ps. 127:1
Unwilling
to wait things out, we say, “I'm going anyway, even if God has not
told me to.” This was the case with the Israelites when Moses
informed them they would not be allowed into Canaan and would have
to wander in the wilderness for forty years until they died because
of their unbelief. They were angered at this, and said, “We will
go up against the giants anyway.” As a result, they were defeated
and suffered great loss of life because God had removed His
protection from them.
Sometimes,
our inability to wait well can result in less than appropriate
behavior. I read about a guy who became very frustrated when the
airline announced that his flight would be delayed. He marched up
to the ticket counter and pompously said, “I need to be on that
flight right now and I need to be in first class.” The agent
responded, “I'm sorry sir, that will not be possible. The flight
has been delayed.” The man impatiently tapped the counter and
said, “Do you know who I am?” The agent picked up the
telephone and announced, “We have a person here who does not know
who he is. Can anyone help him find his identity?”
IV SOMETHING TO
LEARN WHILE IN THE SCHOOL OF WAITING
There
is something to discover in God's waiting room. We can discover the
God of whom Isaiah wrote these beautiful words, “No eye has seen a
God besides You who works on behalf of those who wait for Him.”
Is. 64:1 Wow! There is alot being said there. God is unique and
competent to meet all our needs. He is always working, sometimes in
obvious ways, some times behind the scenes, to meet our every need.
Note what the condition of His working is: He “works on behalf of
those who wait for Him.” Conversely, He will not work on behalf
of those who do not wait for Him.
After the Lord had
healed the paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda, the Pharisees
criticized Him for healing on the Sabbath. He responded, “My
Father is always
at His work to this very day, and I
too am working.”
Jn. 5:17 Our Father is a God worth waiting for. Trust His timing!
Waiting on God
presents us with an opportunity to experience God's transforming work
and see it manifested in others. For example, when our Lord was
informed that His friend Lazarus was sick unto death, He waited three
days before arriving in Bethany. Martha met Him outside the village
and accusingly told Him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother
would not have died.” Christ told her to only believe and she
would see the glory of God. He then revealed Himself as the
Resurrection and the Life by raising Lazarus from the dead.
Here is a true
story about the value of waiting. Brenda decided to celebrate her
birthday by going rock climbing with friends. Half way up the cliff,
Brenda stopped to rest. As she wiped her brow with her sleeve, the
rope from which she was suspended snapped against her eye and knocked
out her contact lens. This greatly distressed her as her sight was
quite blurry without it. She prayed, “Lord, what am I going to do?
I need that lens.” The verse, “The eyes of the Lord are running
to and fro throughout the earth.” came to mind. In despondency,
she finished the ascent of the cliff and made her way back down the
mountain trail with her friends. At the bottom, another party of
climbers was preparing for their climb. One climber asked if anyone
had lost a contact lens. Brenda immediately informed him she sure
had. The climber told her, “An ant was moving slowly across the
face of this rock carrying it.” Brenda's father is a cartoonist,
and when he heard this story, he created a cartoon of the ant
carrying the contact lens with the caption, “Lord I don't know why
you want me to carry this thing. I can't eat it and it's awfully
heavy. But if this is what you want me to do, I will carry it for
you.”
That's the way it
works with God's answers while we wait. Believe
He is working behind the scenes, and your answer is on the way,
slowly, steadily, surely.
V
JUST WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WHILE I WAIT?
That
is the kind of question a Type A personality would ask. Type As are
highly driven, action-oriented people. Nothing drives them crazy
like having to linger in wait mode. For starters, here is what we
can be doing while we wait on God. I am fond of acrostics and ran
across this one.
W—Watch for God to work His ways in your situation.
“Devote yourself to prayer being watchful and thankful.” Col.
4:2
A—Ask
God about His purpose for your waiting. Some are of the school of
thought that you should never ask God about His ways. Just grin,
bear it and endure. But in the Psalms, we often find David asking,
“Why?” and he was called a man after God's own heart. In the
end, his why always lead him to surrendering the matter to
God. He also prayed, “Teach me Your ways.” I do not believe God
is put off by our asking questions. The way I see it, if He
wants us to know what is going on, He will share it. If not, He will
say, “Not for you to know right now. Leave it with me.” I
happily accept whatever He says.
I—Invite
Him to do His work in you while you wait.
T—Trust
that God has a plan and is in the process of fulfilling His plan for
you.
Okay, here are
some suggestions of things to do while we wait on God.
SEEK THE COUNSEL OF GOD On one occasion, David
consulted God as to whether he should go after his enemies who had
plundered his camp. God assured him he would be successful. 2 Sam.
5:19 Let your time of waiting be a time of seeking God in prayer.
Gordon Jenson wrote a song about waiting. Here are a few lines:
“Nobody wants to wait until the Lord has spoken. Nobody wants to
wait and so their hearts get broken. They make their plans in their
own ways 'cause nobody wants to wait.”
WAIT IN EXPECTATION A pregnant mom knows all about
that. It's nine months of saying, “I'm expecting.” The
psalmist said, “Morning by morning, I lay my requests before You.
I wait in expectation.” Ps. 5:3 Billy Graham says, “Heaven is
full of answers to questions no one ever bothered to ask. God's
answer is ready. It's just waiting for our personal, persistent
prayer.”
“HAVE
A BLAST WHILE YOU LAST!” One pastor shares that upon beginning a
new pastorate, he met the church secretary, a woman in her seventies
named Shirley Banta. She never tired of telling him, “Have a
blast while you last.” Sounds like great advice to me, even while
we wait on God.
CULTIVATE THE SPIRIT OF WAITING. Even when life is
going great, cultivate the spirit of waiting on God. Leave your
cares and concerns with Him, knowing that “victory belongs to the
Lord.” In the midst of activity, we need to constantly cultivate
the spirit of waiting. A thought to ponder, eh?
VI
WE EVEN HAVE A ROLE MODEL
We hear alot of
talk these days about role models and mentors. Well, God gives us a
role model and mentor in Joseph. He was sold into slavery in Egypt
by his brothers. There he was accused of a crime he did not commit,
was imprisoned and had to tough it out for fifteen years. He ended
up being catapulted into the prime minister's job in Egypt. Here is
how he handled his waiting. Gen. 40
He remained faithful to his God and resolved to do
the best he could in his situation. As a result, the warden placed
him in charge of the prisoners. Some one came up with this profound
little gem. “The secret of your future is found in your daily
routine.” Ever feel like you have hit a wall? The author
Elisabeth Elliott advised us to do the next thing, “because there
is always a next thing that needs to be done.” v.1—4
Stay ready for your big moment. Day in and day out,
Joseph kept on serving God in prison. He kept himself ready for his
big moment. The day came when the king complained to his cupbearer
who had been released from prison that he had had a dream he did not
understand. The cupbearer suddenly remembered he had been asked by
Joseph to put in a good for him years ago, but had forgotten
in the joy of his own release. He then told the king about Joseph's
gift of interpreting dreams. Joseph was summoned, interpreted the
dream, and became prime minister of Egypt.
Be bold. Some believe that if you are in a horrible
situation, you should just tough it out, keep your mouth shut and
resign yourself to it. Yet the apostle Paul three times pleaded
with the Lord to be healed from what many Bible scholars think might
have been an eye issue. In the case of Joseph, when he heard that
the cupbearer was to be released, he boldly spoke to him, asking him
to put in a good word for him with the king when he had opportunity.
Some would say, “But all those wasted years!”
Yet God was fashioning Joseph into a future prime minister who would
not only be used to save Egypt, but the Jewish nation in seed form.
VII
GOD IS LOOKING FOR DELIGHTFUL PARTNERS IN THE WAITING PROCESS
God knows there is
no shortage of discontented, disgruntled waiters. He is looking for
delightful partners in the waiting process, those who will use the
time to delight in Him in a deeper way. “Delight yourself in the
Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” There are a
number of times where we find Christ partnering with people for a
miracle.
At the wedding in Cana, His mother pointed out there
was no more wine. She waited for Him to do something about it. He
seemed to deflect her request at first, saying, “My time is not
yet come.” Then He told the servants to fill the stone water
pots. He could have simply waved His hand for the miracle of new
wine, but He chose to partner with people.
After He was resurrected, the Lord waited on the
shore as the discouraged, tired disciples came in from a night of
unrewarded fishing. He asked them to launch out into the deep and
put their nets down again. He could have waved His hand for a
miracle catch of net-breaking, boat-sinking fish, but chose to
partner with them.
At the tomb of Lazarus, our Lord could easily have
commanded the rock rolled across the tomb to be rolled away, but He
chose to partner with people, asking them to roll it away before
calling Lazarus out of the tomb. Pastor Keith Foskey writes, “God
always expects us to do our best and He will do the rest.”
King David loved to worship his God. He longed to
build a Temple for his God. But God told him, “This is not for
you. You have been a man of war and have blood on your hands. Your
son Solomon will be doing this.” David could have griped, but he
chose to partner with God and use the time he had remaining wisely.
He drew up the blueprints for the Temple, and began to assemble all
the materials Solomon was going to need. It became a two man
operation. David laid the groundwork. Solomon brought the dream
into reality. As Keith Foskey puts it so well, “Waiting for God
does not mean doing nothing. It means doing what we can while we
can while always being careful not to run ahead of God.”
Okay, where does
all of this leave you? Are you a disgruntled, discontented “waiter”
or a delightful partner with God in His waiting process? Joan Baez,
a folk singer with a long career, had it right when she wrote, “You
don't get to choose how you are going to die or when. You only get
to choose how you will live now.” The psalmist made his choice.
“I waited patiently for the Lord...He put a new song in my mouth, a
hymn of praise to our God.” Ps. 40:1—3 God
is a God worth waiting for. Don't you think so?
(Additional Scriptures used in the above message:
Ps. 37:1—7; Is. 64:4—5; Jn. 5:1—18)
