THE LONG WAIT: 2.1
. . .one of the greatest stresses in life is the stress of waiting for God. He brings fulfillment, "because you have kept My command to persevere. . .(Rev. 3:10)"
Oswald Chambers
. . .one of the greatest stresses in life is the stress of waiting for God. He brings fulfillment, "because you have kept My command to persevere. . .(Rev. 3:10)"
Oswald Chambers
Sometimes I feel like I have spent my entire life waiting for something. When I was a little kid, I was waiting and waiting to grow up so that I could be cool like the big kids. I waited to go to college so that my “real” life could start. I graduated from college and waited for a purpose or a goal to focus my life on. I have spent a lot of time and energy on waiting to become healthy. But mostly I’ve spent a lot of time waiting on God. Waiting for Him to change my life, me, or the people and world around me. And I can honestly say that for the most part, I’ve hated every minute of that waiting.
The thing is, waiting can feel like death, or being locked in prison. When waiting, there are expectations that are not being fulfilled, because you’re obviously waiting for something, and when that something doesn’t happen, you can start to doubt whether God really cares about what’s going on. Hope gets really hard to hold onto when it doesn’t reach any fulfillment. In Proverbs it states that, “A hope deferred makes a heart sick (13:12).” I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent a lot of time with a sick heart, waiting for things that have seemingly never happened--hopes for myself and for others. And I’ve found that the end result is apathy, bitterness, and a strong desire to not hope about anything. And a total abhorrence of waiting.
However, in latter years I’ve started to get the sneaking suspicion that I’ve got everything totally backwards. I’ve noticed that I am not alone in this business of waiting, either. It seems that all of the great Bible characters that I’ve learned about spent a fair amount of time waiting, too. Abraham waited for a son, Moses waited for a call to action from God and deliverance for his people, Joseph waited to be rescued twice, then waited for reconciliation with his family. The Israelites waited for a promised land over and over again as they were captured, returned, and captured again and again. Even Jesus had to wait thirty years to start his ministry! The exciting thing to me is that God never ever left them to wait forever (minus, of course, the generations of Hebrews who lived in exile for their disobedience, and Moses who never got to see the promised land for the same reason). He waited until the time was right, and rescued, gave, or spurred to action as He saw fit. And when the waiting got to be too much for someone and they acted of their own volition, they made stupid decisions and made God really really angry, like the Israelites at the base of the Mount Sinai (Exodus 32) worshipping the golden calf, or Saul not waiting for Samuel to give a sacrifice before a battle (1 Samuel 13). So there really must be something important to God about waiting.
Tune in next time for part three!
The thing is, waiting can feel like death, or being locked in prison. When waiting, there are expectations that are not being fulfilled, because you’re obviously waiting for something, and when that something doesn’t happen, you can start to doubt whether God really cares about what’s going on. Hope gets really hard to hold onto when it doesn’t reach any fulfillment. In Proverbs it states that, “A hope deferred makes a heart sick (13:12).” I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent a lot of time with a sick heart, waiting for things that have seemingly never happened--hopes for myself and for others. And I’ve found that the end result is apathy, bitterness, and a strong desire to not hope about anything. And a total abhorrence of waiting.
However, in latter years I’ve started to get the sneaking suspicion that I’ve got everything totally backwards. I’ve noticed that I am not alone in this business of waiting, either. It seems that all of the great Bible characters that I’ve learned about spent a fair amount of time waiting, too. Abraham waited for a son, Moses waited for a call to action from God and deliverance for his people, Joseph waited to be rescued twice, then waited for reconciliation with his family. The Israelites waited for a promised land over and over again as they were captured, returned, and captured again and again. Even Jesus had to wait thirty years to start his ministry! The exciting thing to me is that God never ever left them to wait forever (minus, of course, the generations of Hebrews who lived in exile for their disobedience, and Moses who never got to see the promised land for the same reason). He waited until the time was right, and rescued, gave, or spurred to action as He saw fit. And when the waiting got to be too much for someone and they acted of their own volition, they made stupid decisions and made God really really angry, like the Israelites at the base of the Mount Sinai (Exodus 32) worshipping the golden calf, or Saul not waiting for Samuel to give a sacrifice before a battle (1 Samuel 13). So there really must be something important to God about waiting.
Tune in next time for part three!
No comments:
Post a Comment