Waiting on the Lord

Waiting…I have waited a long time to finish this blog. Some of the waiting for inspiration I need to own, since I did not actively wait, abide and rest in the Lord throughout the last few weeks. Had I done so, I might have received inspiration to write this sooner. But I will never know…

Patience is sometimes one of my better qualities; I can help others problem solve and agonize through decisions they have to make; I can repeat myself over and over again when others forget; I understand and empathize with the growing pains associated with change. Then there are other times when I do not have patience, do not want to wait, and expect everyone to be on the same page as I am. Even God. Sometimes, I think He is not moving quickly enough, or is making me wait too long for an answer, and I start sounding more like the five year old version of me than the adult version. I am very thankful that my God has infinitely more patience and grace than I do, and loves me through it all!

God wants us to wait for Him. He is not the kind of God that immediately fulfills every need as soon as there is even a glimmer of it. He does not always give all the answers right away, and sometimes gives them a little at a time. He certainly does not follow our schedule, but does things according to His divine timing. After all, isn’t waiting what faith is? “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” Hebrews 11:1. I like the King James version: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Waiting makes us flex our faith muscles; faith is what gives our hope shape, or “substance”, and brings into view those things that are not yet seen. Faith is what it takes to please God; He so completely wants us to trust Him with every part of our being and our lives.

But waiting can be hard; so how do we accomplish this waiting in a manner that glorifies Him and helps us overcome our carnal impatience?

Waiting, abiding and resting. Related yet distinct words.

Most of us understand what “waiting” means, both from experience and the dictionary. In the Old Testament, wait is: to wait, look for, hope expecting something to come to pass. In the New Testament, there is a sense of perseverance added to the meaning of waiting. Sometimes we may feel like we are waiting for something that will never come, but with God, we never wait in vain because He never does not show up: or…He always shows up!

Psalm 40:1 “I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me and heard my cry.” The psalmist spent time waiting patiently, intently and expectantly for the Lord, and he was not disappointed. The Lord stretched out towards him, bent His ear towards him, heard his cry, and responded by “He brought me up out of a horrible pit [of tumult and of destruction], out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock, steadying my footsteps and establishing my path” (v.2, Amplified Version). The psalmist’s patient waiting was rewarded by the Lord, and he found stability and assurance.

Jesus’ last instruction to His disciples is found in Acts 1:4  “^]Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; ⁵ for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” The disciples heeded this instruction and remained in Jerusalem; because they obeyed and waited, they were a part of the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and experienced the joy of speaking in tongues as well as receiving the power that they needed to do the work He had instructed them to do. Had they not waited, or been frustrated with waiting, they might have entirely missed this greatest gift.

In Acts 10 we find the account of Cornelius who was told by a man in shining clothes, while he was praying, that his prayers had been heard and to send for Peter. Cornelius obeyed, and then waited. But while he waited, he did not just sit idly. He gathered his friends and family to his house so that they also could be present when Peter arrived and would be able to hear what Peter had to say to them. Cornelius’ waiting was active; he anticipated a positive outcome; he had faith that there was important information Peter had to share with him, and he wanted to make sure that everyone he loved would hear it as well. So he brought everyone over to wait with him. When Peter got there, Cornelius was done waiting, dove right in and told Peter to go ahead and speak whatever God told him to!

While we are waiting for God’s time to come to fruition, how do we wait? Do we wait keeping an eye on the clock, impatiently tapping our fingers while we count every second that passes? Do we wait by trying to move time along a little faster or by trying to do the work for God? Do we distract ourselves with the things of the world, and throw ourselves into work or family or service? Or are we like Cornelius, waiting and anticipating in faith, and preparing to receive what God has in store?

Perhaps the best way to wait is to abide in Him.

Abide, as it is used in the Bible, is an old word with a deep meaning of rest and continuance; it means to remain stable or in a fixed state, to continue in a place. There is no restlessness in abiding, no looking for something better, no longing for anything else, no lack. It conveys a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment in the waiting. In John 15, Jesus talks to his disciples about how important it is that He abides in them, and they in him.

John 15:4-11 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. ⁵ I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. ⁷ If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. ⁹ Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. ¹⁰ If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. ¹¹ These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.”

When we abide in Christ, and He in us, any waiting that we might have to do is not idle time: we can still bear fruit while we are waiting on the Lord. When we abide in Him, we abide in His love. Remember that “abide” is a verb, which signifies some kind of action: abiding is not a passive process by which we wait to have the Lord do everything for us and watch things fall into our laps. On the other hand, on our own we are pretty useless, while in Him we bear fruit. So, when we abide, our job is to focus on Jesus as our sustainer, our vine, from which we, the branches, gain strength and nutrition so that we are vibrant and productive.

I can tell you from experience that abiding takes practice, much like waiting does, and although it does become easier with practice, I cannot say that I have “arrived at” perfection in abiding or waiting. When we abide, we are actively aware and in the presence of the Lord; we are actively seeking His will; we are actively speaking with and expecting to hear from Him; we are minimizing external (worldly) distractions in order to focus more fully on hearing from Him. Abiding is a conscious decision to make Jesus a priority in our lives and move ourselves in such a way that we remain with Him. No drifting, no wandering off, no huffing and puffing or thinking that the grass is greener on the other side. Notice also that even though Jesus told His disciples to abide in Him, the end result of that was to their benefit, not to their torture…it was so that their joy would be “made full”. God does ask us to do things that are not always easy or even pleasant, but the end result of those things is for our benefit. What a gracious God we serve!

Let’s take a look at resting, another word that is related and adds further depth and learning to the act of waiting for God. Resting is an important idea in the Bible. Right from the beginning, in Genesis 2:2, it tells us that after God had worked for six days to create the world, when He had completed all His work, He rested on the seventh day. The word sabbath (or Shabbat in Hebrew) means to rest, and the Jewish people still do not work on Shabbat. If God rested from all His work, then I certainly need to rest as well! In the Old Testament, according to Levitical laws, the land needed to rest (lie fallow) every seventh year: a sabbath for the land. This was so that the land could regain some of the nutrients that had been used up over the previous six years and produce bountiful crops again. In Hebrews 4, the Word tells us that in order to enter into the rest that God has prepared for us, we must believe, and just as with the Israelites, we run the risk of not being able to enter into His rest if we choose to enter into disobedience. But when we do enter into His rest, we can drink from the Fountain of Living Water, and eat of the Bread of Life, and be refreshed.

From the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible, rest is important. Science today has learned a lot about the value of sleep to the human body, but there is still a lot that science does not know about what exactly happens during sleep, how our bodies know we need sleep, and how it benefits us. But our God, who did after all create sleep, does know. And we can rest securely in the knowledge that if He created it, if He Himself rested, then we also need to rest in the Vine in order to produce fruit and have fullness of joy.

There is so much to learn about waiting, abiding and resting, and just how we do that might differ for each of us. Our God works with each of us in a unique way, providing us with what we need, and teaching us in a way that we can hear and learn from Him. One thing I am certain about is that one outcome of all three is peace. When we are in alignment with the will of the Lord, when we are actively seeking Him out, when we choose to set aside our own agendas and wait patiently for Him, we can be assured that we will experience His peace in our lives.

My prayer for you is that you become increasingly mature in waiting for the Lord, that you rest in Him and receive His sustenance, that you abide in His dwelling place, and that He is your hiding place from the struggles and chaos of this world. I pray that His peace overwhelms you, and His love envelops you. God bless you!

Thanks for reading. I pray that it has brought you closer to the Lord.