Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.
Psalm 27:14
Moses did it for 40 years, and then again for another 40. Joseph did it for 13 years. David did it for 8 years. Jonah did it for 3 days. The Hebrews did it for 430 years. And who knows how long Job did it.
I’ve been doing it for almost 12 years. Maybe you’ve been doing it, too.
All of us have either just gotten through, or we’re going through, or we will soon go through a waiting period. The question is, though, what or whom are we waiting on?
In my particular case, I can easily wait on the right doctor, the right blood test, the right scan, the right procedure, the right medication, and on and on. And I do believe that God uses doctors and medicine to achieve His purposes. But only in His timing.
He is the One I wait on. My healing will come in His way, and in His time. And that healing may not come until I see my Savior face to face, but it will come.
He is my glory, my portion, my all in all.
Moses may well have thought his life in the desert herding sheep would be all the life he’d ever see. But God was preparing him to lead God’s people across the desert.
God was preparing Joseph to lead Egypt, David to be King, and the Hebrews to trust and follow Him into the Promised Land. And God was bringing Job into a deeper, far more intimate relationship with Him than he ever imagined. And I believe God used Job as a witness to his friends and to the people of the town that a righteous man is one who lives by faith in God, not just by the rules he follows. (I would love to know how many people put their faith in God through Job’s amazing testimony.)
The word wait in Psalm 27:14 is qâvâh – to bind together (perhaps by twisting), to collect, to expect, to gather together.
Our wait in the Lord in not sitting and doing nothing. Through it we learn to let go of the world, strand by strand, and bind our spirits to His. We become one with our Savior, and His heart becomes our heart; His will, our will.
As our spirit becomes more and more bound with His, we confidently watch, expectantly look to Him for our salvation in all things. We know that God sees our heart and hears our prayers. We understand that His wait has a purpose. He is preparing us, teaching us, maturing us, and best of all, loving us. Never think that the lack of an immediate answer means God doesn’t love you. Remember Moses and Joseph and David and Jonah and Job and His beloved people who waited in Egypt.
Whatever we wait for on this earth, whether it’s health or relationships or jobs, or for our brothers and sisters in certain parts of world who wait for their release from unjust imprisonment, whether that’s a jail cell or the evil hands of their abusers, or a million other things, all of us who love and follow the Lord Jesus Christ wait on Him for our ultimate rescue.
“For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Romans 8:19, 22-25
Even the creation groans for the time when sin is a thing of the past and God brings us all into the presence of His glory. We wait, too, but we wait expectantly, patiently, hopefully, knowing that our rescue is near.
And while we wait, while we groan inwardly with creation for all things to be made new and perfect and beautiful, we must hold onto the hope that our waiting here prepares us for our life there. Our wait, and all we’ve gone through, will be worth it as we stand before Jesus and the purpose for it all is suddenly clear, and we share our reward with the Rescuer of our souls.
Since ancient times no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who acts on behalf of those who wait for Him.
Isaiah 64:4
