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“And yet
will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious to you, and because of this he will
be exalted. He longs to have mercy on you, for the Lord is a God of judgement.
Blessed are all they who wait for him.”
Isaiah 30:18
In the book,
“Waiting on God,” Andrew Murry points out that not only are we to wait
patiently on God, but that God waits patiently on us.
Murray
writes, “Look up and see the great God upon his throne. He is love…and has an
inexpressible desire to communicate his goodness to all his creatures… He waits
with all the longings of a father’s heart. And each time you come to wait upon
him, or seek to maintain in daily life the habit of waiting, you may look up
and see him ready to meet with you.”
There is a
picture in the Bible of God waiting for us. It is in the story of the prodigal
son, who left his father and home to go into the world to find happiness. The
son finds fun, but no lasting happiness and decides to go home and ask to be a
servant in his father’s house.
But the
father is watching the road. He is waiting and hoping for his son to return.
And when he sees him coming down the road, the father jumps up and runs; he
runs until he is with his son and he hugs him and welcomes him with open arms.
This is a
picture of God waiting for us. And even if we are Christians and have given our
lives to God, he waits each day for us to come spend time with him – telling him
about our thoughts and feelings. Asking him for wisdom, and reading in the
Bible those things he would like us to do. He waits, and sometimes he waits all
day for us to come give him some attention and we ignore him. He wants to
share our lives with him. We need to share our lives with him.
If I had
shared my deepest pain with him on a certain day, I wouldn’t have taken sleeping
pills and passed out. He would have taken my pain and helped me through the
problem of my aching heart. He would have shown me that he is bigger than any
pain this world can give.
C.S. Lewis told
a friend that after 30 years of praying, he had finally forgiven someone who
had betrayed him. I think perhaps he meant he finally had the feeling of
anger and hate gone towards that person. I think if we say, “I forgive this
person,” then we have forgiven. Our feelings confuse us and lead us astray. But
still, it took 30 years for his feelings to catch up with his wanting to
forgive. So, this may be a kind of waiting on God. Waiting means staying with
God and not giving up, like being tired of waiting in line at a store and
finally giving up and leaving. No, we must stay in Jesus, because he is our
only hope in this life.
Jesus said, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot
bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you
abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me
and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do
nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch
and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” John 15:4-6
Murry
writes, “The giver is more than the gift; God is more than the blessings he
gives. And our being kept waiting on him could be the only way for our learning
to find our life and joy are in him himself. Oh, if only God’s children knew
what a glorious God they have, and what a privilege it is to be linked in
fellowship with him, then they would rejoice in Him!”
(I changed a
few words when I was quoting Murry. He speaks in old English, so I cut a few
words or changed them a bit. The book is well worth buying.)
