“Our soul waits for the Lord: He is our help and our shield.”
We citizens of the USA are not known for our great patience. All you have to do is drive for a few miles on Interstate 75 and you will get an illustration of our impatience. Everybody seems to be in a great hurry to get God only knows where. I’m not very big on waiting myself. My family gets a lot of laughs on daddy and granddaddy with my “beat the crowd” mentality when we go out to eat. But one lesson I have learned, however, is to be patient with God and wait on Him. There is no “beating the crowd” with Him. If you serve God, you serve at His timing because. After all, He is God. The first thing that might answer the title question is that He is God and we really have to wait on Him, but the Bible tells us in various places of advantages of waiting on the Lord. You probably already know what Isaiah 40:31 tells us about waiting on the Lord. Here it is, “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” I have found this to be true in my own life and ministry. Any time that I have gotten ahead of God, I have paid a price for it. The Lord Jesus will let us get out on our own sometimes, but He does this to show what we can do in the flesh – which isn’t a whole lot. Psalm 27:14 has the answer as to how our strength is renewed: “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” It is true that God wants to use our time, talents and treasures, but we must use them in His strength, and to have that we have wait on Him. Psalm 37:7 speaks to the importance of waiting on God: “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him: fret not thyself.” Waiting on God brings rest and serenity into our lives. In fact, Jesus made a statement that I frequently quote in speaking and writing from Matthew 11:30, “Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” This does not mean that we come to Jesus and wait on Him that we can sit down and do nothing. The rest that He gives us is rest in our hearts and minds. What I have learned, but not yet as good as I would like, is that Jesus meant what He said in that verse and if I turn my worries over to Him, He will lead me through the issue if He doesn’t lead me around it. You will find the same to be true in your life. It is certain that we do not live in a peaceful and quiet world, but we do have a Savior that will help us to be peaceful and quiet. Psalm 40:1-2 is another passage from Psalms that reveals to us why we should wait on the Lord: “I waited patiently for the Lord; and He heard my prayer and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.” Waiting on the Lord brings stability in our lives. I love the word picture that is given by, “He set my feet on a rock.” We know that this is not literal, but it means that when we wait on the Lord, we are standing on solid ground. The hymn says it this way, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” When we try to find stability in the world, we discover that stability is hard to come by there. There is too much “sinking sand” in the world. As soon as one problem is solved, another one arises. I have found in my life that I can handle these “sinking sands” because I stand on the solid rock. We can use David himself as an example of this. As long as David depended on the strength and wisdom of God, His life went smoothly. That does not mean that David never had problems then, but that he stood firmer in his life and in his kingship. When David committed adultery, had Uriah killed and tried to lie his way out of it, David’s life was never the same. He was forgiven and reestablished himself on the “solid rock,” but he definitely lived to regret his decision not to stand on the rock. I hope that I have shown you why you should wait on the Lord, and that you will commit yourself to do it. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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