The Long Wait. (Or Waiting for God to do Something.)

Around 4 years ago, God told my sister to prepare for a disaster of some kind. She was to buy equipment to survive in the mountains. For two years she bought these things from Amazon and was finally ready. She expected something to happen very soon, so did I. She was very impatient and wondered why God was taking so long to fulfill his words. She has now learned patience and is waiting on Him.

All this time, I’ve been reminded of how God made promises to many people in the Bible, but they had to wait for many years for their appearance.

Noah was told to build a boat. God told him the exact measurements and wood that he must use. Noah did this, but it took 120 years for him to finish. All the while, he preached to the people and warned them, but none believed him, and in the end only he and his family went into the ark and were saved.

God promised Abraham he would give him a son, but God waited for 20 years until his wife Sarah conceived. During that time of waiting, Abraham sinned and took matters into his own hands and took his wife’s slave, Hagar, and had a son, Ishmael, by her. This caused great heartache to all concerned. But God was with Hagar and Ishmael and helped them when they were forced to leave Abraham’s camp.

Moses was told he would rescue the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. He killed one Egyptian and was forced to flee for his life to the desert. There he lived for 40 years as a shepherd. He was humbled and close to God and now was ready for God to use him.

The Israelites were in the desert for forty years because they didn’t trust in God to help them fight for the land in Caanan. God waited until a new generation arose who would trust him to help them.

David was anointed King of Israel when he was very young. Saul was king at the time and he was jealous of David and tried to kill him. David fled and lived in the caves and mountains for around 20 years until he was finally crowned King of Israel.

The prophet Daniel was taken prisoner from Jerusalem, castrated and brought into King Nebuchadnezzar’s palace. He was taught the laws and ways of the Babylonians and given a job. He was exiled there for 70 years, when Cyrus defeated the Babylonians. God had made a promise that Cyrus would let the Jews go back to Jerusalem and rebuild it. Cyrus read the promise written years before and he obeyed God and did that.

After Jesus was crucified, arose from the dead and went back to heaven, many believers thought he would return right away. None of them knew it would be many years before his return. Perhaps some of the disciples knew this though.

In the 1980s, I noticed the rise of Christians getting deeply involved in politics. I knew from reading the book of Revelation, the end times would be when politics and religion would unite to persecute people in the Western nations. I thought Jesus might be returning very soon. Well, it’s been around 40 years and he hasn’t, but politics and religion are now hand in hand in the Republican Party. Christians have protested against gay people and made a fuss about everything they don’t like.

One thing I know for sure, none of the early Christians, nor Jesus himself, would have ever protested against the Romans or the Greeks. They told the people who joined their churches not to live as the Romans and Greeks lived. They told them of the love, mercy and forgiveness of God and how to live a noble life. The Apostle Paul even said he would have nothing to do with judging those who weren’t Christians. That was up to God.

Some of the year spans in this article might be off and few years, but I am 74 now and don’t feel like checking everything. May the Lord bless you with his light and presence.

 

Waiting on God and an Update on My Husband’s Stroke.

 

Andrew Murray

I allow anyone to copy and publish what I write on by blog, "Who is God?"

“Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him. Those who wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the land.”   Psalm 37:7,9

Thank you for your prayers for my husband. He is slowly recuperating from his stroke. This morning he said he noticed his brain isn’t as foggy as it used to be. He is walking and doing hand and arm exercises. His blood pressure is normal and his head doesn’t hurt as much when on the computer or watching TV.

It has been hard for him to wait patiently for healing. It is hard for all of us to wait on good things to come. Feeling impatient is just the way human beings are.

I recently bought a book called, “Waiting on God,” by Andrew Murray. I bought it because I was finding it hard waiting for Jesus to return. I long for the sin and pain of this world to be over and to see him face to face. The book has been a great help to me and I highly recommend it. I thought I would share part of it with you.

From Waiting on God: “Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire.”    James 1:4

“Such words of the Holy Spirit show us what an important element in the Christian life and character patience is. And nowhere is there a better place for cultivating or displaying it than in waiting on God. There we discover how impatient we are, and what our impatience means.

We confess at times that we are impatient with men, and circumstances that hinder us, or with ourselves and our slow progress in the Christian life. If we truly set ourselves to wait upon God, we shall find that it is with Him we are impatient, because he does not at once, or as soon as we could wish, do our bidding. It is in waiting upon God that our eyes are opened to believe in his wise and sovereign will, and to see that the sooner and more completely we yield absolutely to it, the more surely his blessing can come to us.

“It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy.” Romans 9:16

We have as little power to increase or strengthen our spiritual life, as we had to originate it. We ‘were born not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the will of God.’ Even so, our willing and running, our desire and effort, avail nothing; all is ‘of God that shows mercy.’

All the exercises of the spiritual life, our reading and praying, our willing and doing, have their very great value. But they can go no farther than this, that they point the way and prepare us in humility to look to and to depend alone upon God Himself, and in patience to wait his good time and mercy.

The waiting is to teach us our absolute dependence upon God’s mighty working, and to make us in perfect patience place ourselves at his disposal. They that wait on the Lord shall inherit the land; the promised land and its blessing. The heirs must wait; they can afford to wait…”

“Give God his glory by resting in him, by trusting him fully, by waiting patiently for him. This patience honors him greatly; it leaves him as God on the throne, to do his work; it yields self wholly into his hands. It lets God be God.

From the book, “Waiting on God,” -  Day 11: Waiting on God: Patiently