“but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. ” - Isaiah 40:31 (ESV)
I would venture to guess that most of us, if given the choice, would prefer to have things in our life happen on our own timeline. We hate waiting. We get impatient waiting in the slow grocery store line, or when we are stuck on the phone holding with customer service, or even when the cars in front of us don’t move immediately when the light turns green. Whenever I order something online I find myself checking the tracking information at least twice a day to make sure my package hasn’t fallen behind or if it has somehow jumped ahead of the scheduled delivery date. We dislike waiting.
Our annoyance toward waiting isn’t only true with internet orders and waiting on hold with customer service; this impatience often manifests itself in our spiritual lives as well. Think about your prayer life for a moment (chances are this is also an area of opportunity but that’s for a different day). We tend to pray with a greater intensity for the things we desire the most, and the things we desire the most we also tend to want to see come to fruition first. Even though we may include something in our prayer about “God’s will being done,” we still have a certain expectation that He act sooner than later.
So how do we react when God isn’t following our timeline? Let me guess: First we’re unmoved in our approach, second we start to get irritated by God’s inaction, third we start to challenge whether or not God really does “know best,” and fourth we decide that God just doesn’t care about our desires or is choosing to punish us. The fifth and final step can go in two directions: either we fall into apathy, giving up on our efforts, or we take matters into our own hands.
Let’s look to a couple of instances where waiting was required of someone in the Bible. The first that comes to my mind is Abraham and Sarah. God promised them an heir and then made them wait 25 years for the promise to be fulfilled. During that time span both tried to take matters into their own hands. Abram (later Abraham) tried to adopt a servant (Gen 15:2-4) in an attempt to help God deliver on His promise. Sarai (later Sarah) concocted a plan and tried to use her maidservant Hagar’s womb to help God out. Both instances were probably from good motives but were ultimately sinful acts and contrary to God’s will and timing. How much grief could they have been spared by showing a little trust and patience in our Lord?
The next example I think of is from 1 Samuel. In 10:8 the prophet Samuel instructed King Saul to go to Gilgal and wait 7 days for Samuel to arrive and offer sacrifice and show Saul what he was to do. By 13:8 Saul had waited 7 days exactly, but when Samuel hadn’t arrived yet, Saul took matters into his own hands and offered the sacrifice himself. “As soon as he finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came” (13:10). Saul’s act of disobedience, not waiting as God commanded, cost Saul and his linage the throne (13:13-14).
Now finally on to Isaiah. There is a (not so subtle) theme of waiting woven through this prophetic book. Isaiah knew the deliverance of Israel was coming. I’m sure he longed for its arrival with a deep passion but all throughout the book he can be found “waiting.” In 8:17 he outright says, “I will wait for the Lord…and I will hope in Him.” In 25:9 he is already anticipating the time when he will look back after the deliverance with a sense of joy and accomplishment gained from having waited. In 30:18 Scripture declares that “the Lord is a God of Justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.” Now in 40:31 we are shown a general principle that patiently praying believers will be blessed by God. He will give us strength in our trials. Isaiah seemed to have a deep trust in the Lord from which he drew strength and placed great hope in the outcome of his waiting.
Sometimes God calls us to action. Sometimes He calls us to wait. In cases where He calls us to wait, we need to respond with continued hope as Isaiah did and not look to force God’s hand as Abraham, Sarah and Saul. Your ability to wait will directly reflect your faith and trust in God. Please make sure you don’t buy the enemy’s lie and fall into apathy thinking that God doesn’t care or has forgotten about your needs and desires. Keep your attitude and activities focused on Him and He will renew your strength and your hope.
His Slave to Righteousness,
- Tyler Wess
4 comments:
How often I forget this very important verse in Isaiah. It is so true, yet daily I struggle with just trusting God and waiting on his promises.
Thanks for posting these. They are a great way to refresh at work during my morning break on Fridays (when all I can think about is going home for the weekend!)
First off, I love the blog and definitely appreciate the time and effort that's gone into it. Good to see you're still a Bible study leader at heart :)
Now, for the discussion-starter...
The difficult part with the whole "waiting on the Lord" concept comes when you're praying for guidance on a decision that has a timeline. It's very easy to get frustrated when you need to make a decision on something soon and you don't feel that God is answering your prayers (or at least not in a way you're expecting). I like Pastor John MacArthur's statement on a similar topic from a sermon I heard a while back; he said, "Sometimes knowing God's will on a particular decision is as simple as just doing whatever feels right." Of course, this was prefaced with the requirement that you first be actively living for the Lord and having fellowship with Him daily... the idea being that by spending time regularly with God and in His word, your will becomes aligned with His will, which means that doing "whatever you want" will always (or should always) be acceptable and glorifying to Him. Kind of a neat concept.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t expecting this discussion to follow the post. What I didn't expect was to have the issue raised, and answered so insightfully in the same (early) comment. Good to see you’re still a Bible student at heart. : ]
Craig has drawn attention to the next logical questions. What if waiting isn’t an option? What if we are called to action? Fortunately he also added some great insight. Since the comments forum doesn’t allow for adding “bold” or “underline” to text, I want to make sure everybody caught where he said,
“by spending time regularly with God and in His word, your will becomes aligned with His will.”
While there is much more that could be said and you know I’m tempted delve right in, I’ll save it for a later post. For today I’m going to use Craig’s response to get me off the hook. I’d prefer we not get too distracted from the “waiting” discipline so quickly anyway. :]
I would like to add just one thing to follow what Craig said:
Romans 12:1-2
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
- Tyler
Wow, who would have guessed that the Bible could say what I meant even better than I could? Nice find on the Romans passage - it's a perfect fit.
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