Enabled to Wait on God - Christ’s Commission Fellowship

Enabled to Wait on God - Christ’s Commission Fellowship

Pursue Intimacy With God Series
Speaker: Martin Sanders 

Life is filled with moments where we have to wait. Traffic jams, slow Internet connections, poor restaurant services or even elevators that seem to take its time. We seem to have an aversion to anything and everything that requires us to sit down and wait.

On the other hand, there is a special kind of waiting that is always for our good. That is to wait upon the Lord. There are times in our lives when we 

have asked God for specific things to happen. 

As the months and years go by, nothing 

seems to come about. Yet, we are reminded 

time and again that the Father knows best. 

We can trust Him. He uses these intervals to 

work in our lives. He teaches us as we wait.

The delays would require us to constantly cling to God whatever our circumstances may be. This is the essence of true waiting. We are essentially saying to God that nothing else matters but His presence, His love, and His deliverance.

Isaiah 40:25-31 tells us that waiting on the Lord results in renewed strength. The word wait or hope in the original Hebrew has the literal meaning of binding together, suggesting that the act of waiting involves binding ourselves with God or abiding constantly with Him. The result is a renewal of our strength. The word actually means to change or exchange, and hints that in the process of waiting, we exchange our weariness with God’s own infinite strength.

This truth has been demonstrated many times in the lives of remarkable men and women in the Bible. David waited 15 years in preparation for the throne of Israel. Joseph waited around 17 years before he was thrust in a position of power in Egypt, and kept clinging on to God despite the seeming randomness of the events that were happening to him.

Paul waited on the Lord three years before his ministry began. Moses spent 40 years waiting for God in Egypt before he was to deliver an entire nation out of bondage. And Abraham had to wait, against all common sense, on God’s promise to give him a son; at an age where having children boggles the mind. Unfortunately, there are other characters in the Bible that failed miserably such as King Saul. He refused to wait, took matters into his own hands and chose to stay out of God’s sovereign plan.

Waiting upon God does not mean we become passive. It is a quiet expectation of what God can do. We must use these opportune times to be more intimate with Him. Despite the lulls, we must continue to be faithful with the things that He has presently entrusted to us. Even if our circumstances are pressing on against us, we must choose not to compromise our values or nurse bitterness and rebel against Him. For waiting on the Lord is tied to obedience. How exactly do we wait on the Lord?

Confident Faith in God’s Character

The same God who “has measured the waters with the hollow of his hand, and marked the heavens by the span” (Is. 40:12), is also concerned with and devoted to us more than we can imagine. We can cast all our problems and anxieties on Him (1 Pet. 5:7) because we know we can trust Him.

Patient Trust in God’s Timing

Our timing is not His timing, since God perceives time from the standpoint of eternity. Being mindful of the fundamental truth –“From everlasting to everlasting, you are God” (Ps 90:2)—will keep us from being out of sync with His perfect timing, and help us entrust our future to Him.

An Attitude of Expectant Hope

Because of God’s character, and because He sees the beginning to end, we can finally have peace that He will bring about what is good and best for us in our lives.

What are you waiting on? Are there things in your life that you need to take to God today? Are there areas in your life that you need to entrust to God? Whatever it is, may we have the courage and conviction to say to God, “Lord, because You know what’s best, I am willing to wait on you.”