Waiting on God

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.”—Psalm 37:7a

 

Are you in a season of waiting on God? Are you in a place where you can do nothing but wait on Him? It’s not exactly the most pleasant thing in the world. I don’t like waiting, and I would guess that you don’t like it too much either. However, waiting is the crockpot of our sanctification. It is where the flavors of our faith come together and waft through the rooms of our spiritual house, awakening us to the sense that there is something good that will come out of it. Waiting is also the chisel to the marble block of our character—God is shaping us into who He wants us to be.

 

I am not an expert on waiting, but here are some things that I have learned about what it means and what waiting doesn’t mean. First up, waiting means that I am constantly relinquishing control. I like to be in control and know what is coming and confident that I am the best one to handle it. Waiting reminds us that we are not in control—God is and we have a hard time trusting Him. Even though He has done nothing but earn our trust over and over again, we still have a hard time trusting Him. We have a hard time trusting Him the same reason we have a hard time trusting doctors—we feel good, but doctors can identify pain points that need to be fixed. It’s unpleasant. We would rather not suffer, so we stay away from the doctor hoping our pain goes away. We don’t want to suffer, we don’t want to deal with the pain, we want to be in control and do what we like. We don’t want to be uncomfortable, embarrassed, humiliated, or feel like we have to deal with a setback. We want good reports, green lights, and be happy, happy, happy!  However, like a person with severe pain in their body, try to rearrange our lives to deal with the dull pain, rather than take the necessary precautions to deal with the sharp pain. We want to be the authors of our destiny and waiting requires us to relinquish authorship and cede control to the true author.

 

Secondly, waiting means an opportunity to purify and grow our faith. Romans 5:3-5 says, 

“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” 

Suffering produces endurance—we couldn’t endure if we didn’t experience hardship. Endurance makes us become more focused, well-rounded, resolute, and sure of who God is and how we are to behave and conduct our lives. And character produces hope—the most life-giving and life-sustaining of Christian virtues. The cycle is not complete without hope. To have suffering, endurance, character—without a focus on what will happen because of us living in a certain way leads to despair. We need hope to show us that what we go through has a point that will be shown in the end—and we will be happy to see it.

 

Thirdly, waiting means desiring God’s will more than anything else. This is closely related to purifying one’s faith. When we want God more than anything else—it helps everything else to fall away. Suffering has a way of showing us what we really want—and that can be good or bad depending on what it is and how much we want it. If whatever we want supplants or surpasses our desire for God, we can see that it is idolatry and is wrong. Our waiting can help us refocus our desire and set us in a trajectory where we want God more than anything else. It also has a way of showing us what we really value. Saul was to offer a sacrifice when Samuel showed up, but Samuel delayed, the men murmured and Saul took matters into his own hands—and as soon as he did, Samuel showed up and rebuked him. He feared what people thought and valued the approval of man more than he did the approval of God and what He thought. We must wait on God and allow Him to direct in His time.

Wait on the Lord. He will act. Keep working, keep hoping, and keep refocusing as God uses waiting as the chisel to shape your focus and heart into who He wants you to be.