Waiting is More than Just Patience

Last Sunday we gave some focus to the matter of waiting upon the Lord.  The matter of waiting does not seem to be a complicated one.  We have waiting rooms in which all we do is sit.  Isn’t waiting the most brainless, effortless activity of them all?  That is not the kind of waiting we are talking about.  Life is not like a waiting room; a response like that would be closer akin to sloth.  No, God’s waiting room is quite different than your doctor’s waiting room.  

Waiting obviously does have a time element.  This is why patience is needed and why patience is a fruit of the Spirit.  But what about unbelievers who are waiting?  They may look patient, but is that a fruit of the Spirit?  No, that is the fleshly necessity of living in this world.  They have to wait because many times they have no other choice.  But what are they doing in their waiting?  Are they obeying God while they patiently wait?  No.  Are they rejoicing in the Lord?  No.  Are they humbly trusting the Lord’s timing?  No.  Spirit-enabled patience is when the Spirit works in your spirit so that you submit your timeline to God’s timeline, you rearrange your priorities to match God’s, and you are ready to respond to God when the time is fulfilled.  Godly patience is like the proverbial duck: calm up above, but furiously paddling underneath.  

While waiting on the Lord does have a time element, I would propose that there is an even more significant feature of waiting on the Lord.  Waiting on the Lord is geared to the anticipation of seeing what good thing God is doing.  This means we need to very very careful that the expected fulfillment of our waiting is not too highly defined in our mind.  Many times we just cannot foresee what kind of good God is going to bring about because God is surprising and creative and unexpected in his goodness.  Do you think Joseph could have expected that his exaltation he dreamed about as a boy would be that of ruling over the greatest world power of its day? Do you think Ruth could have dreamed that her waiting would result in a kinsman redeemer giving her not only land security but grandchildren that would lead to the Davidic king?  Do you think Job could have guessed that after his utter devastation, his previously massive wealth would be doubled?  Do you think Hezekiah thought his prayer of deliverance (Isaiah 37) from the world-conquering ruler Sennacherib would result in the instant overnight death of 185,000 of Sennacherib’s soldiers?  

When we wait upon the Lord, much of what is happening may be God arranging good things that we don’t even know are good yet.  God may be changing us so that we love what we don’t yet love.  We may be waiting for God to fulfill one promise, but God is fulfilling another promise.  Yes, they will all be fulfilled, but we must expect the unexpected.  Is not the coming and person of Jesus the greatest fulfillment of the greatest promises?  Yet everything about him, from his birth all the way to his death, was shock after shock for those that thought they knew what they were waiting for.  

Much of our waiting needs to match our praying, and the driving impulse of our prayer is “hallowed be your name.”  We just don’t know how that hallowing will best be done, and so we pray this sweeping prayer that gets to the heart of it, and leaves the details to God.  Sure, we should pray for specific things.  And sure, we should look for specific fulfillment when waiting for God’s work.  But let your main impulse, your main desire and expectation, be for God’s hallowing, God’s exaltation, which he will accomplish in the most astounding ways.  Wait for it!