Waiting on the Lord
--Psalm 27:14
--Psalm 37:7-9
--Isaiah 40:30-31
Usually I am a patient person. During Christmas Breaks from Asbury College in 1968 and 1969, it was my privilege to work with my friends V. G. and Mary Buckner, owners of the Gospel Book Store in my hometown of Marion. In 1968 a lady came in from Energy Baptist Church looking for gifts for her Sunday School Class. I spent about an hour with her making recommendations, one by one which she rejected, before finally making a decision.
When she left, the Buckners and their other full time employee said, “We are so glad you had her as your customer. She is always a very difficult person to please, and you were so patient with her.”
That was not the case, however, this past Tuesday when I had to pick up two prescriptions for Sheila at the Mt. Zion Wal Mart Pharmacy. I had submitted them earlier that morning. I did not owe anything; all that I needed to do was sign the receipt. Only one other customer was ahead of me in line; therefore, I thought I’d be out of there in no time at all which I needed to do. I had to make a hospital call on John Berry and then go to Springfield for a meeting that evening. I was on an extremely tight schedule with no room for delays.
As it happened, the gentleman ahead of me took his “merry time.” He wrote a check for the total amount of his three prescriptions, and he insisted he must write the prescription numbers for all three of them on the on his check. He had a hard time deciphering the numbers correctly and required the continuous guidance of the pharmacy technician each step of the way. I thought I’d never get out of the pharmacy department, and my stomach just kept “churning, churning, and churning” while I endured what seemed to be an “endless, needless wait.”
None of us like to be kept waiting, but God’s Word keeps calling us to “Wait on the Lord,” to “wait patiently for Him.” We have the promise of Isaiah 40:30-31:
“Though youths grow weary and tired,
And vigorous young men stumble badly,
“Yet those who wait for the LORD
Will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary.”
God is not on our fast paced time schedule, and we should neither rush Him nor run ahead of His plan for our lives. We need to become a people who truly “wait upon the Lord.”
God has always taken His time in working with His people. Noah preached repentance for 100 years to his neighbors while he patiently obeyed God in building the Ark. The rain lasted for 40 days and 40 nights, and the waters did not subside for another 150 days; the Ark then rested on the mountains of Ararat for approximately three months; Noah then waited at least another 40 days before sending out the dove for the first time. He waited another week, sent out the dove again; and this time the dove came back with an olive leaf. He waited another week and sent out the dove a third time, and the dove did not return. Noah then removed the covering of the Ark and saw dry land, but it was still another month before God invited Noah to “Come out of the Ark.” Over 101 years had passed between God’s calling Noah to build the Ark and his families’ departure from the boat. Noah knew what it meant to “wait on the Lord.”
Abraham also learned to wait on the Lord, although in between times he often “messed things” up by trying to take matters into his own hands. Abram, as he was originally named, was a fatherless 75 year old man and his wife Sarai a 65 year old barren woman when God first called him to “leave his country” and promised His servant that He would “make him a great nation.”
Abram was 86 years old when Hagar, Sarai’s Egyptian handmaid, gave birth to his son Ishmael. This was one of those “mistakes” Abram made in not “waiting for the Lord” to fulfill His promise. Instead he followed the human advice of his wife Sarai, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her” [--Genesis 16:2]. The great missionary to China J. Hudson Taylor once said, “Quiet waiting before God would save from many a mistake and many a sorrow” [--J. Hudson Taylor, quoted in Men of Integrity, Vol. 4, no. 3.]. If Abram had simply “waited on the Lord,” much bloodshed in the Middle East could have been spared throughout world history including in Iraq and Afghanistan today.
Yet we are just like Abram and Sarai. How many mistakes and sorrows have we had to endure simply because we failed to “wait upon the Lord?” Thankfully, Abram got back on track. When he was 99 and Sarai was 89, God changed their names to Abraham and Sarah and promised them a son within the coming year. 100 year old Abraham and 90 year old Sarah then became the proud parents of Isaac. God had not forgotten the promise He had made 25 years earlier, “I will make you into a great nation.” What God promises to do, He always does, but we must “wait on the Lord.”
Let’s take one more example, Joseph, son of Jacob. He was approximately 17 years old when his brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt. He was not elevated to Pharaoh’s Prime Minister until he was about thirty, having spent most of those years in prison after being falsely accused of adultery by Potiphar’s wife. Joseph, however, “patiently waited upon the Lord.” Many years later he could witness to his brothers: “’Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.’ And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them” [--Genesis 50:19-20].
Jesus patiently ministered with His disciples. He trained them personally for three years, but yet He said before His Ascension, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift My Father promised, which you have heard Me speak about. 5For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Jesus knew that impetuous Peter and the other 119 in the Upper Room were not yet ready for ministry until the Holy Spirit would come and fill them.
To a certain extent the 120 in the Upper Room did “run ahead of the Lord” by casting lots to choose Matthias to replace Judas when God’s choice soon would be clearly seen to be Saul of Tarsus, but truly they obeyed the Lord in “waiting for the gift My Father promised.” The promised coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost turned once cowardly disciples into dynamic, courageous Apostles, as Acts 4:13 records: “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” The difference was their obedience, they had “waited for the promise of the Father” as Jesus had commanded them and had not struck out to minister in their own strength.
Waiting on the Lord is a matter of prayer. The 120 in the Upper Room were in prayer when the Holy Spirit, the promise of the Father, came upon them on the Day of Pentecost. Acts 1:14 affirms: “They all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.” For our own spiritual well being and the ministry of the Church, we need to “wait on the Lord in prayer.” Frank C. Laubach is right on target when he observes: “The trouble with nearly everybody who prays is that they say ‘Amen’ and run away before God has a chance to reply. Listening to God is far more important than giving Him your ideas” [--Frank C. Laubach in “Frank C. Laubach, Teacher of Millions.” Christianity Today, Vol. 35, no. 10.].
Prayer empowers us to hear God. William McGill is most insightful in his observation: “The value of persistent prayer is not that He will hear us . . . but that we will finally hear Him” [--William McGill, quoted in Men of Integrity, Vol. 4, no. 3.]. Waiting on God means praying, and praying involves listening. God has a great plan for each one of our lives and for the ministry of His Church. The Lord speaks clearly in Jeremiah 29:11 and promises, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Reggie White reminds us in God’s Playbook: “God wants us to communicate with Him because He has a great plan for our lives. For us to fulfill that plan, we have to hear what He’s saying and what He’s calling us to do. Prayer sometimes consists of sitting down and just being quiet and listening.
“You know how people say, ‘Don’t just stand there, do something?’ I believe God is telling us, ‘Don’t just do something, stand there.’ God wants us to be quiet sometimes and just meditate. We have to listen before we can learn and obey” [--Reggie White, God’s Playbook (Nelson, 1998), quoted in Men of Integrity, Vol. 4, no.3.]. Waiting on God in prayer means we take time to listen to Him, learn from Him, and obey Him.
The great Baptist preacher Vance Havner pastored many years in Charleston, South Carolina. He so eloquently calls upon us to wait on the Lord: “Simply wait on Him. So doing, we shall be directed, supplied, protected, corrected, and rewarded” [--Vance Havner, Christian Reader, Vol. 32, no.4.]. Eugene Peterson takes it a step further: “In prayer, we are aware that God is in action and that when the circumstances are ready, when others are in the right place, and when our hearts are prepared, He will call us into the action. Waiting in prayer is a disciplined refusal to act before God acts” [--Eugene Peterson, Leadership, Vol 8, no. 2.]. How often have we been guilty of neglecting to wait on the Lord and acting before He acts?
“Not long before his death, Henri Nouwen wrote a book called Sabbatical Journeys. He writes about some friends of his who were trapeze artists, called the Flying Roudellas.
“They told Nouwen there’s a special relationship between flyer and catcher on the trapeze. The flyer is the one that lets go, and the catcher is the one that catches. As the flyer swings high above the crowd on the trapeze, the moment comes when he must let go. He arcs out into the air. His job is to remain as still as possible and wait for the strong hands of the catcher to pluck him from the air.
“One of the Flying Roudellas told Nouwen, ‘The flyer must never try to catch the catcher.’ The flyer must wait in absolute trust. The catcher will catch him, but he must wait’” [--John Ortberg, “Waiting on God,” Preaching Today, no. 199.].
God is our “catcher.” We are the “flyer.” We must “let go” and wait, putting our absolute trust in Him. He will “catch us” in His time, but we must let go. What do you need to let go today?:
“Be still before the LORD and wait
patiently for Him.”
