Most of God’s children find themselves in a constant state of waiting for one thing or another. You have desires in your heart that are so powerful that, sometime during each day, your thoughts latch upon them and your mind’s gears engage around them. Would it surprise you to know that I have a handful of items that I’ve been praying for during the entire eighteen years of my journey with Christ? Truth be known, I have one request of God in particular that I have brought before Him daily for nearly four years with absolutely no indication that He is working it out on my behalf. I pray, wait and live my life. Parents pray for their children and wait for the breakthroughs. Troubled spouses pray for their mate and watch the calendar turn to another year with no change of heart to be noted. Missionaries pray for one convert to whom they may pour in the best they have to offer while public school teachers seek affirmation from God that they are truly making a difference in the lives of their students. In a thousand different ways, God’s people have been created for waiting. This should not trouble us too much because the whole of the Christian experience is lived out in the context of waiting for the one event which will bring to pass the long expected hope of the Church.
“Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” – James 5:7-8 {ESV}
You’ve learned by now that God doesn’t rush things. He never steals a glance at some celestial clock hanging on the tail of a comet to make sure He isn’t getting behind. It may be mind-boggling for us to consider that He exists today in perfect bliss that His plan for the ages is exactly where it must be. His omniscience and sovereign rule work together to bring to pass His infinite construction of all events exactly according to His fathomless heart’s desire. Here’s some great news: God isn’t perplexed about what’s happening down here and hasn’t had to recalculate anything. All things are working together for His glory and He has never wrung His hands concerning the outcome. Yes, this Wednesday, God knows exactly what He is doing. This includes what He is doing in your life.
But you and I do not know exactly what He is doing. He hides His timeline from us. God does not provide a syllabus to the course of our lives. He instructs us to awake each day in confidence that He is good and He is working out that goodness for His ultimate glory and our inevitable benefit. The blessings fit into His plan. The burdens are stitched into it also. His immediate affirmations of our requests are meant as an indicator of His favor to us; but so are the delays and denials in our lives. Why did He not answer that prayer of yours with a resounding YES? Because He is too wise and too good to provide something for you that would not be as healthy as its absence would be. We are constantly humbled as we remember that He is God and His ways hyper-abound above our own ways. His wisdom is not human or earthly or material but deep, divine and unfathomable. Somewhere along the way each of us must come to the soul-stabilizing conclusion that God is good. That’s your anchor for waiting. It also happens to be the source of your joy.
I have friends who are hunters and gardeners. I don’t care to be either of those things and I’ll tell you why – for me the reward is not worth the amount of patience necessary to gain it. If I must wait then I want to wait for something that holds a satisfying reward for me. I can wait for the venison and corn while they are cooking but not for the deer and the stalk while they are being hunted and grown. God has graced me, however, to be a pastor – a calling that is swiftly abandoned by anyone who is not patiently in it for the long haul. I am quite willing to employ patience and steadfastness in this aspect of my life. My point is this: we are all able to discover that we are willing to be patient. You will find yourself able to happily wait. You can endure and persevere and continue and abide. What determines your willingness to do so? The degree to which you value the thing that you are waiting for. When you esteem its worth highly, you will wait patiently. So let us do together what God has decreed that we must do. Let’s wait on Him. His answers. His breakthroughs. His provision. His intervention.
His return. When this event occurs we will immediately know that all of our waiting was never in vain.
I think my willingness to be patient also hinges on whether I believe what I’m waiting on will actually occur. If I know it’s coming, I can rest in the wait or even work in the wait depending on what my part should be. I can also wait more patiently if I know and trust whoever is bringing my hope and desire to fruition. Faith in God and trust in His goodness and His promises gives me patience in the little things and the long haul. When I forget how He’s at work, which I do too often, I become discouraged or might try to develop my own plan.Thank you for reminding us regularly of God’s goodness and trustworthiness, that He won’t let us go.
My patience is shorter than I wish it to be…. my years of growth have been
fruitful in developing patience in my life….not that I have achieved such, but that I am still growing and I praise Him for leading me in this thing called patience.
It’s one thing to quote Psalm 90 v4 (For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night) … it’s easy to quote because 1000 years is beyond us.
But as a recent preacher we had pointed out, there is a very clear and carefully recorded gap of 13 years between the last verse of Genesis 16 (when Abram was 86) to the first verse of Genesis 17 (when he is 99). No record of how God was dealing with him, or whether or not God even spoke to him. Nothing.
That is patient faith.
Excellent material, my friend. I’ll be asking you to join a small number of friends to write some guest blog posts for me while I’m on vacation in June. Consider yourself forewarned!