Waiting on God's Timing

Lamentations 3:24-26
"I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.' The
Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good
to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord".

Humans Find Waiting Tough

Think back how many times you had to wait for something in your life, and how much
you've hated it. Getting to a sale to buy that much desired article of clothing,
only to find that your size was sold out. Then going to the sales person and
asking them to call around to the other outlets of the store to see if they could
trace your size. The words, "come back tomorrow," are just the most difficult
words to agree to. Knowing that a Christmas or birthday gift waiting there for you
to open, just seems to evoke restlessness, curiosity, and impatience. Being
separated from someone you love for a long time, and being forced to wait for the
moment when you can be together again. Or, meeting a person at an agreed location
and time, and then having to wait for them for 15 minutes or longer. Waiting, for
whatever reason, is really a difficult thing for most of us to do. Then we get to
the Bible, and there we read that God wants us to wait for Him. Wait for an answer
to prayer, wait while He brings us through a trial, or wait for Him to show us
what His will is with regard to a decision we need to make. As humans, we like to
know exactly what is going on in our lives, and we want to do as much as we can to
be able to control as much of the future as possible. We want to be secure and
comfortable in our lives from day to day. We naturally hate change, insecurity and
uncertainty. Waiting on God incorporates all of these! Waiting on God means that
God might change the way we are used to doing things. Waiting on God means that He
might work out our lives to be totally dependent on Him, bringing us to a very
insecure point, humanly speaking. Waiting on God means being uncertain of what
happens in the future, because we are not busy chasing around with our normal
earnest attempts to keep our lives moving along the normal fixed and controlled
path. The question is, can God expect us to wait on Him in all areas of our lives?
What does it mean to wait on God? How do I cope in my situation of loneliness, of
confusion, of hurt, of anger, or whatever my situation might be? If I am down
spiritually, or feel far from God--when I have more questions than answers, can I
wait on God? This is surely the time I need instant answers. Where do I go for
strength and focus to implement this most difficult request . . . to wait on God?

Waiting Demands Closeness

Let's go back to what it takes to wait for someone somewhere. Say for example, you
were to meet a friend at a supermarket parking lot at 2.00p.m. You arrive at
1.55p.m., and start waiting. At 2.10p.m. you start wondering why they're not
there. At 2.20p.m., you get a little edgy because you wonder why they are late. At
2.30p.m., you start speculating where they could be and whether something happened
to them or not. At 2.40p.m., the test of your friendship comes in. If the person
is just an acquaintance, you start getting really irritated because they are
wasting your time! But, if that person is really close to you, and you know them
intimately, knowing that they would never keep you waiting on purpose, you would
have a totally different emotion as you wait for them. You would firstly hope that
they didn't have an accident or that something else really bad didn't happen to
them. Because of your knowledge of the person, you would give them the benefit of
the doubt that something happened to delay them to this extent. The closer and
more intimate the relationship you have with the person you are waiting for, the
easier and more relaxed the waiting becomes. So, when God calls for you and I to
wait on Him, He is calling us to be close and intimate with Him--to give Him the
benefit of the doubt, and to have complete and unconditional confidence in Him, as
Creator and Controller of the universe by the mere power of His spoken word. (See
the article on "If He Created All--He Controls All"). If His spoken and written
Word has the power to bring the universe and this earth into existence, and
control the flawless working of the universe, then that same spoken and written
Word can answer any questions I have, and control any crisis in my life. However
long the wait is, whatever the intensity of our emergency is, and however
desperate we are to find the answers, the intimacy we have with God will enable us
to let God be in control and just wait for Him to work in and through that
particular situation."Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the
Lord." Psalm 27:14. Is this possible? It sure would bring relief and rest if we
could come to this point in our lives.

Examples of Waiting
The best way to answer the question as to whether it is possible to implement
unconditional waiting on God, is to look at examples from the lives of people
before us. Examining the lives of people that have successfully waited on God, can
teach us, inspire us and motivate us to wait on God.

Joseph - is one of the most inspiring examples of someone who waited on God.
Imagine the anguish of being sold by your own family to slave traders and then
being taken hostage to a foreign land.

Being sold as a slave to a strange man who has a different culture, religion and
language to you. (See picture above). Waiting day by day for some kind of purpose
to unfold in these events, but only to be thrown into further confusion and
apparent defeat by the false accusations of his master's wife, and be thrown into
prison. More waiting, more time, more trials. A flicker of hope enters the picture
as Joseph interprets the dreams of Pharaoh's baker and the cup bearer, only to
have to wait for two more years. Finally, after about 12 years of waiting, Joseph
gets the answer of why this long period of waiting, of confusion, of change and
uncertainty. Coming through the crisis and looking back always makes sense . . .
but at the time, nothing makes sense at all. It took over 12 years of waiting, day
by day, for God to bring Joseph to be the Prince of Egypt, ruler of all the land,
having only Pharaoh higher than him.

Mary and Martha - had an experience of waiting that really put pressure on their
relationship with Jesus. Mary and Martha sent an urgent message to Jesus,
informing Him that Lazarus, their brother, was seriously ill. Jesus delayed in
going to Lazarus' aid. He waited for four days before He went to see Lazarus, but,
by then, Lazarus had died from his illness. When Jesus arrived at the home of his
close friends, Martha ran out to meet Him, saying, "Lord, if you had been here, my
brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever
you ask."

When Mary came out to meet Jesus, she voiced the same words. (See picture above).
Jesus then performed a miracle that impacted the lives of his dear, intimate
friends in a way that an earlier visit could never have done. Jesus walked to the
tomb where Lazarus was buried and said, "Take away the stone." So they took away
the stone. Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came
out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
Was the wait worthwhile? Was it worth having gone through the soul anguish in
order to witness the power of the Creator and Controller of the universe's
powerful word? Was the short term suffering worth exchanging for the long term
involvement in the awesome display of this divine deed--the awakening of the dead
to new life by the spoken word of the Son of God? (Read this story in John 11)

Esther - was a young Jewess, carried into exile by the king of Babylon, who was
later conquered by the king of Medo-Persia. She and her people lived in this
foreign land, among foreign people. She had an uncle, Mordecai, who served in the
king's court. When Esther was just a young teenage girl, she was taken into the
king's court as a candidate to be selected as queen. She had to undergo 12 months
of beauty treatment before being presented to the king. The king was attracted to
Esther more than any of the other young virgins, and chose her to replace the
existing queen. One of the king's evil nobles devised a plan to kill all the Jews
living in Medo-Persia at that time. Esther played a crucial role in saving her
people from being destroyed. What if she had given up on God because she was in
captivity, seemingly removed from God and His leading in her life? How could God
allow her to stay in captivity? What was the purpose of her being selected as one
of the many girls who would serve the king? These are all questions that Esther
could have asked. But, in the end, Esther saved the nation of Israel from being
destroyed. Waiting on God to act and work in the circumstances of her life,
brought her to the place where she could do a saving work for those who lived in
her world at the time.(Read her story in the Book of Esther).

David, Moses, and John the Baptist - all waited, alone, for God to work through
their circumstances, to prepare them for a special task, and to develop a more
intimate relationship with God. Moses and John the Baptist spent time alone in the
wilderness, and David spent time alone out in the meadows, tending sheep. Each
person waiting on God to work in their lives in the way that He knew best.

Are You Confronted With Waiting?

Are you trapped by a set of circumstances that you are desperate to get out of?
Have you tried everything in your power to find answers to your unique situation,
and just cannot find any? Do you feel totally helpless and out of control to the
point where your state of well being is effected? Have you been listless and
unmotivated, have you been feeling depressed and disillusioned while you have been
wrestling with the complexity of this mysterious maze? Well, along with so many
others, those in the Bible and those in life around you, God is calling you to
wait on Him. God's heart aches to get involved with your life and bring you the
clarity, the confidence, and the composure you long for. God's timing is not the
same as ours. God longs to give us answers and an outcome which is far superior to
the short term solutions which we might have come up with. God asks us to just
wait. Wait so that He can work slowly and thoroughly through the mess that has
come into our lives due to our ignorance and independence of Him. It will take a
period of time, a period that no-one can determine, for Him to bring us to where
we will find an undisturbed happiness, and to where we are able to save other
people trapped by their circumstances, with whom we make contact from day to day.
Oswald Chambers in his inspiring devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest, makes
the following statement in the passage for January 4, about waiting for God:

"There are times when you can't understand why you cannot do what you want to do.
When God brings a time of waiting, and appears to be unresponsive, don't fill it
with busyness, just wait. The time of waiting may come to teach you the meaning of
sanctification--to be set apart from sin and made holy--or it may come after the
process of sanctification has begun to teach you what service means. Never run
before God gives you His direction. If you have the slightest doubt, then He is
not guiding. Whenever there is doubt--wait.
At first you may see clearly what God's will is--the severance of a friendship,
the breaking off of a business relationship, or something else you feel is
distinctly God's will for you to do. But never act on the impulse of that feeling.
If you do, you will cause difficult situations to arise which will take years to
untangle. Wait for God's timing and He will do it without any heartache or
disappointment. When it is a question of the providential will of God, wait for
God to move."

Daily Loyalty Eases Waiting

As Joseph sat with tied hands and feet on the back of a camel, his broken heart
must have forced many doubts and questions toward God. (See picture above). How
could God possibly be in the center of this hurtful deception and betrayal? How
could God allow him to experience this measure of pain when his life was
unconditionally committed to God from childhood? God called Joseph, as He calls
each one of us, to "present perseverance," or "daily devotion," and "future
forgetfulness." In other words, forget about the future and its outcome in any
given situation. Concentrate on today and persevere in a single minded move toward
oneness and intimacy with God. "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness
and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about
tomorrow . . . each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:33, 34. Learn
the simple steps of how to build your life around God one day at a time, and how
to spend time alone in His presence, praying, meditating, and absorbing His Word.
"I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope." Psalms 130:5.
Building a relationship of oneness and intimacy with God is how to find the vigor
and vitality to wait--wait without any if's or but's. As Joseph, and all the other
spiritual giants in the Bible, went through the seemingly insurmountable struggles
that surrounded them, they just remained loyal to their devotion to God for just
the day ahead. Day by day, even if it took years for their waiting to be rewarded,
they never looked ahead impatiently. For them, just that one day of complete
oneness and intimacy with God was enough. When a person has received full
forgiveness from God, and has given free and unrestricted forgiveness to everyone
who has wronged them, the intimacy and oneness they experience with God is
unbelievable and very real. There is a level of "God consciousness" and "God
awareness" present which overshadows the unknown of future events. The present
known with God cancels the future unknown. The confidence in the present, inspires
confidence for the future. The person waiting for the future answer or solution
rests from fretting and worrying about the future, because of the successful and
accomplished contact with God in the present.

Giving God Room to Work His Perfect Plan

Only when we are in a state of waiting, can God work His perfect plan in our
lives. As we discussed above, waiting comes with an inseparable call to intimacy
and oneness with God, and when we agree to wait unconditionally for God, God has a
secure and steadfast foundation to work from as He gets more and more involved in
our lives. God is not bound by time. He might take many years to accomplish the
miraculous, magnificent purpose that He has planned for each of us. In comparing
the rewards of waiting between Esther and Joseph to our lives, we need to put
their power, position and prosperity aside, and focus solely on their role of
saving the people that entered their worlds at the time. The Steven Spielberg
movie, "Schindler's List," is a tremendous trophy of how greed and selfishness
gave way to the inner spiritual wealth of selfless saving. A mission of money
making and personal profit by the German businessman, Oscar Schindler, turned into
a crusade of care and compassion, as he hustled condemned Jews to work safely
under his control. As the drama came to a close, Oscar Schindler, overwhelmed by
the anguish of seeing innocent men, women and children taken to their death, fled
from the Allied forces saying, "This ring could have bought life for two more
people--this car could have bought life for 3 more people--this suit could have
bought life for one more person." Yes, the human spirit soars to heights beyond
material possessions or positions of power when it is involved in lifting a soul,
threatened by death, back to life. God knows that this component is fused into
every fiber of each of the beings He created. Unfortunately this noble feature has
been dwarfed by the demon deceiver. Satan has fused thoughts of self exaltation,
self enrichment and self gratification into the minds of mankind, making them
insensitive to the higher and more noble aspirations that form such an integral
part of their makeup. When God calls us to wait, He calls for intimacy and oneness
for the present, but He also calls for each of us to go through a preparatory time
for a saving work in the future. Yes, like Joseph and Esther, God needs each of us
to save the people whom have crossed our paths, whom have entered our individual
worlds in some way, or have been associated with people we know, directly or
indirectly. Think about it. If each loyal believer waited loyally on God, without
question, like Joseph did for all those years, how easily God would cover the
earth with "mini messiah's" or "small savior's." How easily God would touch each
alienated rebel with the magnetism of His irresistible love and inconceivable
care. Whether filling a position, like Joseph and Esther, high in government, or
merely filling a position of humility like Jesus Christ Himself, every person
waiting on God will be a savior of the people attached to them. Every person will
feel the heroic thrill of lifting people around them out of the clutches of death
and destruction, to a new level of life and loving.

"What About The Specific Answer to My Particular Crisis?"

I can hear you ask, "So, am I being told to wait on God in a crisis, and God will
bring the answer by making me save people in crisis around me? What about the
specific answer to my particular crisis? What about my failing marriage, what
about my financial difficulty, what about my soul anguish due to the abuse I have
suffered, what about this addiction that won't let me go, or what about this fatal
disease that I am facing right now?" The answer to these disturbing questions come
from the lives of Joseph, Esther, and all the other loyal believers who had the
will to wait on God and rest in the hope that He will deal with their crisis in
His time. God brings answers in a swift miraculous manner, He brings answers that
are delayed in order to fit in with the work He is busy doing in us, and He brings
answers much, much later at a time when we think He has forgotten about us--at a
time when that answer will facilitate a miraculous contribution to our overall
salvation and our long term character development. Yes, Joseph had many trials
along the 12 year waiting period--trials which God answered along the way. He had
the normal needs of being fed, of giving and receiving love, of maintaining his
contact with God, of holding on to his self worth, and of facing abandonment and
loneliness. Joseph learned all too well that "the moment of greatest
discouragement is the time when divine help is the nearest." E.G. White, Desire of
Ages, p.528. Joseph sacrificed the quest for immediate relief to his crisis in
order to gain the bliss of the overwhelming reality of God's presence in his life
daily. Joseph never had the Scriptures as we have, Joseph had no first hand
knowledge of the Messiah's historic walk among men, or His death and resurrection.
Joseph had only the stories that were told by word of mouth from generation to
generation, and he had the evidences of the Creator's work all around him. Joseph
only had a fraction of the evidences of the reality of God's infallible dealings
with mankind, but, he trusted unconditionally in the evidences that he did have to
rely on. As he undertook the journey to Egypt, of despair and discouragement,
Joseph must have gazed bewildered and baffled at the grasslands, the trees, and
the tiny insects darting from blossom to blossom--just carrying on with their
usual activity as if nothing had happened. He must have remembered his times alone
in nature and all the lessons his father had taught him about the Great God who
created everything around him, and who had called his forefathers into a special
relationship of constant communication and counsel. As the day died down in the
west, and the kaleidoscope of burnt shades filled the sky, and then as darkness
came, he must have looked up at the countless constellations above him, and
whispered softly, "You are still with me. I can't understand the meaning of all
this dear Father, but you are still with me." His mind must have milled around the
dreams he had, and somehow he had to reach out in blind trust, holding onto hope,
and he was held in the Hand of the Heavenly Helper. In our crisis, in our darkest
hours, in our times of not knowing where to turn, we too need to focus on all the
evidences God has given for our survival. (Click on the following for more
detail). Spending time alone in meditation and prayer and study of the holy
Scriptures, focusing on the beauty of nature in order to be reminded of the
awesome power of the spoken word of the Creator and Controller of the universe,
and the sweet encouragement when Spirit filled believers fellowship together.

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