Why We Hate to Wait

Isaiah 40:31
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew [their] strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; [and] they shall walk, and not faint.

Why We Hate to Wait

Life is moving at incredible speeds most of the time. We live in a world where we have schedules to keep, deadlines to meet and goals to attain. We don’t have time to waste and so we get very impatient when we have to wait. In spite of that, much of our time is relegated to waiting. We wait in traffic, or for the bus, for the family to get ready to go, to speak to an appointment or in a grocery line. We wait at the doctor’s office, when we have to see a person to get a matter of business taken care of, for our car to get repaired, and for something to start or something to finish. We are always wanting to go a hundred miles and hour, but we are always impeded by that frustrating person in front of us. Don’t you just hate to wait? For all of the waiting that we do, patience and longsuffering isn’t often one of our strongest virtues. Instead it tends to gender more stress and emotional issues.
Now we turn to the spiritual side of our life and here is God telling us we need to wait upon Him, but we don’t have time to wait because we have a life to live and an incredible amount of demands and tasks to get accomplished. We feel like we need to be running, not waiting. Why do we have to wait God?
Since I have been writing this paper, it has taught me more about waiting upon the Lord. Everyday that I write, I have to come to Him and ask Him about what to write and then wait upon Him for the direction. Many times He may give me something right away, sometimes I have to wait a good period of time and occasionally nothing comes at all. Now I can charge ahead and just decide for myself what I will write and I have probably have done that on occasion whether I was aware of it or not, but I know that life comes from the daily bread that the Father gives. Each day I want to approach Him with, “Give me this day, my daily bread.” Spiritually I need for the Father to provide that spiritual food rather it comes through His written Word, a personal word or a word given through an outside source, I need to hear from Him. That means I have to shut up and start listening rather than just talking. We all know that we need to pray and talk to God, but do we all know that we also need to be still and listen. We expect that God should always listen to us, but do we take the time to listen to Him? Now I will be honest with you. There are times I have prayed about matters over a period of time and listened, but I didn’t hear much directly from the Lord. Those are times when as I proceed I place those matters in His hands and ask Him to direct the outcome and His will to be done. There are times when we should have enough of the Word and spiritual principles within us that God expects us to step forward and operate out of His life within us in different situations, but that doesn’t negate the need for us to wait upon the Lord.
If you and I were servants in a house and our lives were to wait upon the master of the house what would we need to do? Our sole responsibility is to wait upon him. Now that doesn’t mean that we just pull up a chair and sit down, it means that we operate in a manner that ministers and meets our master’s needs and not our own. His priorities are our priorities and when He does speak to us, we respond with prompt obedience. Now wouldn’t it be out of place for us to take our agenda to the master and say here is what I’ve got going today, can you help me out? You see many of us get our roles reversed, we are trying to run God rather than serve Him. Waiting is an exercise in putting God’s agenda first in our lives.
We are like batteries. If we are constantly putting out, but never taking in, we will exhaust ourselves and burn out. Waiting upon the Lord is like spiritually recharging one’s self. It causes us to slow down and focus on the things that pertain to life and godliness. It is a time when God renews our strength and empowers us with His life to do His will. If we are living life out of our strength and effort we are like a firecracker that goes pop and we’re done. Nothing lasting was accomplished but a brief noise, but in Christ we are like a slow burning candle giving off the scent of His life and character. It may not seem like we are anything or anyone of great significance, but when we operate out of the Spirit by waiting upon the Lord our life will have meaning and impact. It will make a difference in our world and isn’t that what we really want our lives to be about. Don’t hate to wait upon the Lord, look forward to it. It is your time to be renewed in His life and strength

Blessings,
#kent

Advertisement

Does the Lord come up Short?

Does the Lord come up Short?

Numbers 11:23
The LORD answered Moses, “Is the LORD’s arm too short? You will now see whether or not what I say will come true for you.”
Have you ever believed God for something and just felt so sure that He was going to fulfill a promise to you and then it didn’t come to pass as you thought it would. You sit there thinking where did I miss it? I was so sure I was hearing from God.
As I was sitting here meditating on what to write this morning my eyes fell upon the above scripture which I had printed out and clipped to my office organizer as a reminder of a promise that I had believed for.
We had lived in the same home for about twenty-seven years and although our house was adequate and our kids were raised, it still seemed crowded with our businesses. The stairs were becoming somewhat of a problem with the wife’s health and the fact was Sharon especially, was ready for a change. I had just retired and was struggling with a new business that was costing me more than it was making.
Being the conservative person that I am, it was hard to rationalize trying to buy a bigger house at this point in life, let alone knowing how we would pay for it. One day though I was stirred to faith and I set down with the newspaper and just looked at some homes. One in particular rather struck me and so I shocked Sharon one day by saying let’s just go look at some houses. The particular house that had struck my fancy was a new home, beautifully built and Sharon really liked it as well. The only small glitch was that it cost about $500,000 dollars, but what is that to God, right? Now there was no way in the natural I could see clear to have this house, but we began to pray and believe God. Somehow that faith really began to take hold in both of us and God just seemed to keep giving us little confirmations along the way. We would go out there and pray about it, over it and dream about it. We would just praise God and thank Him for it. Our faith was strong as we spoke as if we already had it, even when we could not see the means for it. At that time no miracles came to pass and one day it sold, only we weren’t the buyers. We couldn’t believe it. I would look over at that verse that I had clipped there and say, “God, didn’t you tell me that Your hand was not short to bring your word to pass? We even went by that house sometime after the other occupants were living there. We were even so bold as to go up and ask them if they liked the house and if they were planning on staying there? Perhaps God just had them house sitting for us for a while, but the daughter that we spoke too assured us that they were happy with the house and planned on staying there.
We gave up on the idea of the house and decided we would probably just remain stuck where we lived and make the best of it.
A little later down the road we were blessed with a wonderful gift. My parents, who are so precious and giving, received some income from an investment they had made some years prior. They passed some of that blessing on to us by giving us enough to finish paying off our home that we were currently living in. Now we were pretty much debt free. That is a great feeling.
It was probably about six months to a year later that we were driving home from a delivery for Sharon’s business and she spotted a “for sale” sign on a beautiful home. I had remember admiring it on occasion when we had passed by it, thinking what a great view they must have of the city. Being the woman of action that she is, Sharon called our good friend in real estate to see if we could look at the home. I don’t believe I was with them the first time they went through it but she came home loving it. It had a beautiful yard, and an incredible view. The house would provide us with the room and the distinction we needed for our businesses and it didn’t have all the stairs that Sharon would have to go up and down all of the time. It had so much of all that she had desired in a home. When I saw it, I liked it as well, but it was a pretty substantial investment. We put our home on the market and when we were about to put our offer in, two other parties were about to put there offers in as well, but then withdrew them till they knew if the homeowners would accept our offer. We came to an agreement and purchased the home before we had sold our other one. At least it was paid off and even though we had some expenses such as utilities and such, we didn’t have another house payment. This one was about twice what our other house payment had been. We moved in around the middle of December and that winter was rough. My business was dead and we had a lot of expenses, but God was so faithful to see us through.
A little over a year later, the Lord had increased our business and we have so enjoyed this home. It is so much more than we had ever imagined and we know, without a doubt, that it has been though God’s provision. We have come to realize that this house is so much better for us, in many respects, than the first house would have been. God had His time, but He came in a different door than what we were looking at. He so often does. We can never put God in our box or limit Him to our understanding. He is so much greater. Everyday we thank Him for what only He could supply and do. “And the Lord said to us, “Is the Lord’s hand waxed short? Thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not.” God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think.
We have lived in this home for ten years now and have never missed a payment due completely to God’s faithfulness not only to provide for this home, but to sustain it. Everyday is a miracle and testament to His goodness and faithfulness, even in trying times.  I don’t know how many times I have uttered through these years, “Only God”.

Blessings,
#kent