Psalm
27:14 (NASB)
Wait
for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the
LORD.
Psalm
27 is subtitled “A Psalm of Fearless Trust in God”. It starts with “The Lord is my light and my
salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord
is the defense of my life, whom shall I dread” and ends with verse 14. To wait for the Lord takes a great amount of
strength, courage and trust. Your
natural human tendency is not to wait because you want answers, results and
things now. It takes the Spirit of God
in you through His fruit to give you patience to wait. Otherwise, waiting can be unbearable and so
many people just won’t practice the discipline of waiting for God to move, to
respond, to answer.
Waiting
for the Lord is waiting to learn about His answers to your prayer(s). Waiting is so difficult in situations you may
be praying about like waiting for a call about a new job, especially when you
are jobless. Waiting for results of
tests ordered by your doctor. If you are
single, waiting for the right man or woman to enter your life. Waiting for your job environment to become
more tolerable or enjoyable for you.
Waiting for money to come in to buy something you need but cannot
afford.
When
you are waiting for answers to prayers in your own life and for those closest
to you, such waiting requires strength and courage and trust. Indeed, think about it…..if you had no trust
in the Lord, not only would your waiting bring about exhausting anxiety, but
also you likely would take matters into your own hands and do something
foolish. Waiting on God requires a huge
amount of trust in your heart, believing that He knows what is best for you and
that His timing is perfect. Well, that’s
easier said than done when you are waiting for an answer that will determine
the course of the rest of your life.
Biblical
waiting does not mean doing absolutely nothing while you wait. There are activities that the Lord expects
you to be doing while waiting. The
Hebrew word for wait means not only to wait but also to prepare, to look for,
and to collect. While you wait you also
are to be seeking the Lord through time reading His Word, time in prayer, and
time in meditation. Your waiting builds
faith as you seek Him. Your waiting
gives others opportunity to see your faith and grow in their own faith. Your waiting keeps you from making wrong
decisions and taking wrong actions like quitting a job or taking the wrong job
or marrying the wrong person or acting out of retaliation. Waiting builds patience and contentment and
inner strength and character qualities (Psalm 37) that you would never have
possessed if you did not learn to wait on the Lord.
Waiting
is perhaps the greatest act of faith in God that you can ever practice. He sees your faith in Him and He will reward
you (Isa 30:18, Heb 11:6). Your waiting
on Him also will give you future blessings that you cannot possibly imagine
while you wait (Isa 40:31). Your waiting
on the Lord will give you a closeness to God that otherwise you would never
experience in your whole life because waiting forces you to focus on Him rather
than on yourself (Psalm 42).
Henri Nouwen gave
an excellent illustration about waiting for the Lord. He had friends who were trapeze artists,
called the Flying Roudellas. There are two different roles on the trapeze – the
flyers (those who fly through the air) and the catchers (those who catch the
flyers). One of the rules of the trapeze world is, “The flyer is the one who
lets go, and the catcher is the one who catches.” As the flyer swings on the trapeze high above
the crowd, the moment comes when he must let go of the trapeze. He flings his
body out in mid-air. His job is to keep flying and wait for the strong hands of
the catcher to take hold of him at just the right moment. Nouwen was told , “The flyer must never try
to catch the catcher.” The flyer’s job is to wait in absolute trust. The
catcher will catch him, but he must wait.
You are the flyer,
God is the catcher. You wait for awhile,
nothing happens so you decide to take matters into your own hands. You fail to wait on God to catch you. Instead you try to become the catcher and of
course, you will fail. Remain as the
flyer as you wait and God in His perfect timing will catch you.
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