Sunday Morning: Waiting on God

Ah . . . waiting. Who likes to wait? Like when you ordered something from amazon so you check the front porch every other day or so to see if it’s arrived yet. You know that it’s not expected until a few weeks later, yet your already waiting. Then when one week rolls around you start checking every day, hoping it’ll have arrived early. And when two weeks go by, you start getting really inpatient.

Or when your dad goes into a parts store and you decide you’ll go in to . . . . it beats sitting in the pickup. Then your dad meets one of his buddies and starts talking about motors, sprinklers or how someone’s tractor broke down, then they go on and on and on. While your standing there nodding your head, turning your eyes from your dad, to his buddy, back to your dad, then to his buddy again, waiting for the conversation to die down. Just when you’ve got one foot out the door, another buddy comes over, so you lean against the wall, thinking how you could be riding your horse by now if you were on the farm.

Now what’s worse knowing something will arrive at a certain time and waiting for it, or not knowing and waiting for it? Like not knowing when your dad’s wanting to go. I personally think not knowing when Dad’s wanting to go is worse. The “dad situation” would compare a little with waiting on God. Don’t you think? You don’t know when your dad will be ready to go and you don’t know when God will answer prayer. You don’t know when He’s going to be ready either. You trust that He will answer, and you trust Dad’s visiting will end, you just don’t know when. Just when you think Dad’s ready to go, another conversation starts. Just when you think your chance, your long awaited opportunity finally came, it runs away again: it turned out not to be yours.

I’ve never met a person who likes to wait. Some may deal with it better than others. Perhaps there are situations where you think, “Okay, I rather wait”, but I’m talking about the ones where you’re like, “should I do this?” Where does God want me?” “Is this the right thing for me?” Or when you’ve prayed earnestly for God to grant something; a wet year, health, or a new member in the family and it seems God will never answer your prayer. During these times it’s hard to wait. You may remember the article about trust and faith, Sunday Morning: Trust Blended with Faith, faith without trust does not work, nor does waiting without faith.

If we wait without having faith, we’ll soon give up. How can we wait without having faith? It wouldn’t work. Why are some people better at waiting than others? They have more patients? Not in this case. Waiting requires patience, yes. When the person in front of you takes forever at the buffet, yet your belly gurgles already, crying out for those hot wings, it takes a good amount of patience to not just reach in and grab the hot wings. Here, knowing we must have good manners and stay kind, gives us patience. But the cases I’m talking about it takes something stronger to give patience. It takes faith. Faith in God.

We have to have faith that God will answer our prayers. We have to trust Him, knowing our waiting will be rewarded. No, we might not always receive exactly what we asked for. Because sometimes God has different plans that we don’t see. But we know He will answer us and He will grant us exactly what we needed. We just have to wait, and trust our waiting will be rewarded.

Be still, have faith and wait.