On Your Mark...Get Set...Wait...

"Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." (Ps. 27:14)
"Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him."(Ps. 37:7)
"Wait for the Lord and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the land." (Ps. 37:33)
"I wait for You, O Lord; You will answer, O Lord my God." (Ps. 38:15)
"Wait for the Lord, and He will deliver you."(Prov. 20:22)
"For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him!" (Isa. 30:18)
"The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him."(Lam. 3:24)

"Waiting on God" is not the easiest command to follow. We get so excited when He makes His promise to us. We cry out, "Yes! Hallelujah! Thank You Jesus! Amen and amen! May it be!" This exhilaration lasts a couple of weeks, until the promise, from our perspective, is "slow in coming." We grow impatient, tired, and anxious. We try to figure out when or how "it" is going to happen. Then, if the promise delays even longer, we begin to concoct these creative ideas on how we are supposed to bring the promise to pass. We know God is faithful, true, etc. etc., but, if He does not act soon enough, we feel an obligation to help Him in the process.

I, personally, struggle with this same temptation, fighting an overwhelming sense of responsibility for my life and my future. I grow anxious in the waiting, knowing God is faithful, but concerned that I might do something wrong or not act at the right time, and thus delay my breakthrough. "Lord, what do I need to do? Is there something that I'm not doing right? Am I missing something that is delaying Your promise? Why has it not happened yet?" The fruits that I bear from this mental labor are only frustration and weariness. Is that walking in true abandoned faith? Yes, I do believe the Lord will fulfill His promise to me; after all, He says in His word that He"...is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?" (Num. 23:19) But am I truly living like I believe that when I get all caught up in the concern that I am not doing my part to help? Do I really believe Him if I am frustrated and fretful that I missed it? No! Believing, trusting, and waiting on God means that I am at rest, knowing that He will fulfill His promise "in due time" and, if I were to miss something, He would let me know about it. The challenge I face is learning to trust that He is at work on my dilemma whether I am seeing any results in the natural or not.

Think of a pregnancy: the woman knows she's expecting. She does take a few actions of preparation, such as feeding herself and purchasing baby materials, out of expectancy and anticipation of the baby's coming. However, she does not cause the baby to grow. She cannot make herself give birth. The baby grows as a result of the miraculous wonder of God's intimate and meticulous inner work, which He performs on the inside of the mother. She simply waits for the Lord to fulfill this process and, at the appointed time of delivery, He will cause her body to go into labor.

Think in the context of illness: When you have a cold, what do the doctors tell you to do? "Drink liquids, eat chicken noodle soup, take Tylenol and vitamin C, and above all, REST." You cannot make the virus go away; it has to go through the process. The only way to speed the process of recovery is...rest, correct? There are some actions that you can take to help with the symptoms of the cold, but the most important thing you can do is rest while the virus passes through your system.

There are some actions that we can take as we await the Lord's promise. We can feed on His Word, spend time with Him in prayer, and continue with diligence with that, which we know to do. But above all else, we must come to the place where we will rest in faith and trust that God is intimately and meticulously working His Word into fruition in our lives, which He is doing in the unseen. God will keep His Word; He will do it in His own timing and without our help.

May the Lord grant you the grace to go through the process of waiting and resting in perfect peace and faith that He who began a good work in you will complete it. May you always remember that God acts on behalf of those who wait for Him. (ref. Isa. 64:4)and those "who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power; they shall lift their wings and mount up [close to God] as eagles [mount up to the sun]; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint or become tired." (Isa. 40:31 AMP)