During the first few months, my 3-year-old hated school. She waited for the weekends – the holidays. Monday, she would get up and ask when the holidays will come.
We explain to her that she needs to wait for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.. so that her holidays would come. She will say okay and again ask the same question Monday evening. Again the next day morning! This would go on until the holidays actually came.
The problem is it was hard for her to grasp the waiting period because her knowledge of time was very limited.
If 5 days seem so long, imagine if she was asked to wait for a year. That would be her forever.
In many ways, our limited knowledge of God’s timing makes it so difficult for us to wait on God’s promises for our life.
And it seems like forever. No one likes to wait.
Waiting is hard and difficult, many times frustrating and at times can test our faith. It is especially difficult when there is no guarantee that what we are waiting for will come to pass.
Desires we long for, prayers we’ve been praying for or news we are waiting to hear can tempt us to be impatient, to be discouraged, to be anxious or to even wonder if God really cares.
New year – all of us would have received the promise verse.
But do you think, those promises pertain to this 2019.. Not really?
All promises in the Bible are yes and Amen in Christ Jesus. Very true. But they do not work according to your Jan to Dec calendar, but they work according to God’s calendar. And bible says in 2 Peter 3:8 - With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. This makes us impossible to come to any conclusion.
This makes our waiting even harder. -
Adam and Eve.. When was Eve actually tempted to take a bite from the forbidden fruit? She always saw the fruit.. It should always have been desirable to her eyes and always tempting to bit.
But do you know what particularly tempted to eat the fruit? Only when Satan was able to persuade her to believe that God did not have their best interests in mind, Adam and Eve decided to go ahead without God, go their way and bite the fruit.
When God tells us to wait, trust Him. Trust Him completely. Trust that God has your best interest in His mind. Like Adam and Eve, if you do not believe God genuinely cares for you, you will go ahead and find ways to accomplish your desires. And eventually, you will move out of His plan for you. It will not just create a rift in your relationship with God but also brings you into pain and troubles.
3 Things to remember even as you are waiting:
Theme of my message is this: WHILE YOU ARE WAITING, GOD IS WORKING.
Waiting is uncomfortable because waiting period is normally accompanied by God’s silence. But actually, that silence regarding the thing you are waiting for is a powerful tool that God uses for our good.
1. God is working on your character
God is more interested in your character, in your ability to reflect Christ in your daily lives. And he uses these waiting periods to prepare godly character in you.
Interestingly in ladder of faith that Peter writes about in 2 Peter 1:6 - For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.
Godliness follows perseverance. (patience or endurance). Godliness does not follow faith or knowledge but it follows perseverance. When you wait, you develop patience and thereby godliness.
All of us know Moses was the one who delivered the people of Israel from the bondage in Egypt. But tell me when was the vision first implanted in the heart of Moses that God would use him to deliver his people?
Not by the burning bush… Much before that.
Read Acts 7:23-25 -
23 “When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites. 24 He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian.25 Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.
Vs 25 – People did not recognize this vision that God had planted in his heart.
Moses was just 40 years old when this happened. And you know the rest of the story. He had to flee to the desert.
Imagine what would you have been going on Moses’ mind when he was in the desert as a shepherd.
First few years, he would have waited and waited. Finally, I guess he would’ve just buried that vision. He probably thought that vision never came from God. And God had to intervene again, through a burning bush.
But all these 40 years, as Moses was waiting, God was working. Working on Moses’ character.
Compare Moses when he received the vision at 40 and again at 80. Apart from maturity that comes by age, there was a huge difference in his character.
When Moses first got the vision, he was a different man. He was young, energetic and relied on his strength to get things done. He was a prince that time. He had some kind of power and authority.
As a young man, he was impatient and brash. He kills the Egyptian who tried to hurt his fellow brother. He tries to reconcile and be a judge among two Hebrew brethren who were fighting.
He used his strength, wisdom and means that time.
Now when God had completely worked on him, Moses knew his strength is nothing. He had no power to accomplish anything. He literally fights with God to choose someone else for this great task.
When he became totally dependent on God, God fulfilled the vision through Moses.
Numbers 12:3 says there was not a man humbler than him on the face of earth. (Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.)
So, firstly, as you wait, God works on your character. So you need to be patient, you need to persevere. And you can persevere only if you are eyes are focussed on God. Not the thing you are waiting for.
I like this verse in Heb 11:27 - By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.
Success was because of perseverance. And perseverance was because his focus was on God.
2. He prepares your skills and your abilities.
While on one hand, he molds you, shapes you, he takes away your pride and your dependency on yourself, on the other hand, he prepares your skills and abilities to receive the calling/blessing he has in store for you.
Bible scholars say when the prophet Samuel came to the house of Jessi to anoint him king over Israel, David was probably 10-15 years old. But he did not immediately become the king. He had to wait until 30. But during those days, what was happening? For a long time, he worked under Saul. God was preparing him. Preparing him first under a King himself so he is fully equipped to be a king.
No doubt, his first victory was with a sling and a few pebbles, but later as a king, he never fought battles with sling and pebbles. He was fully equipped. God had actually trained him
That is why David says in Ps 144:1 - Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.
He attributes the training to God alone. He knew it was God who gave him those skills.
In the same way, God equips us before He blesses us. We need to humble ourselves as he equips us.
1 Peter 5:6 - Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
3. God prepares circumstances as we are waiting upon Him
Esther 6:1-4
That night the king could not sleep; so he ordered the book of the chronicles, the record of his reign, to be brought in and read to him. 2 It was found recorded there that Mordecai had exposed Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s officers who guarded the doorway, who had conspired to assassinate King Xerxes.
3 “What honor and recognition has Mordecai received for this?” the king asked.
“Nothing has been done for him,” his attendants answered.
4 The king said, “Who is in the court?” Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the palace to speak to the king about impaling Mordecai on the pole he had set up for him.
The way God works is so interesting!
As per the end of previous chapter, Haman was busy throughout the previous night setting up the gallows for Modecai. And incidentally, the same night, insomnia strikes for the king. He just couldn’t sleep.
He calls for “the book of the chronicles” to be read. Book of chronicles presumably a record of legal decisions, of battles won, of tribute paid. Possibly, a bedtime read for the king.
And there comes a portion where some time back, Mordecai has saved the king’s life from a murder plot. And Mordecai wasn’t honoured for his good deed.
Persian emperors were renowned generously honouring all those who did good deeds or service to the king. But Mordecai has not been rewarded.
The book was supposed to put him to sleep, but now all thought of sleep is gone now. Something needs be done immediately.
“Who is in the king’s court?”
V4 - Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the palace to speak to the king about impaling Mordecai on the pole he had set up for him.
Now notice the timing carefully. The king couldn’t sleep. Why? In God’s sovereign plan, he stays up all night in order that he might be reminded of Mordecai’s act of saving his life.
When he called for an advisor to set right this situation, Haman, who is unusually early, walks into the court. Haman probably could not wait any longer to tell the king of his plan for Mordecai.
I have read this passage several times and always admired at the wisdom of God’s timing. It is a beautiful reminder to us that “A man's heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.” - Proverbs 16:9.
Even in our lives, God prepares the circumstance in our favour.
CONCLUSION
And believe me, His timing is always perfect. Always. He is never ahead of time. Never before time. Always on time. While we wait, God is working behind the screen. Like a three-year-old, we might never even get a glimpse of God’s calendar, but all that you and I can do is to trust God.
God wants you trust Him so deeply that you do not rely on your strength, rather just wait on Him. Simply be still and know He is God. When God told Abraham and Sarah that He would give them a child, they would have thought they had a role to play in bringing about this miracle, but all they actually needed to do was just trust Him and be still.
Prov 3:5 - Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding
There is actually something happening while nothing is happening in your life. God is working while you are waiting!
