ILLUSTRATION:
A Mother and her son were talking. His mother lived for nearly 94 years. One day around her 90th year she said something like, "If I had known I would live this long, I would have fixed the dishwasher." It had stopped working. So there it sat quietly waiting to be fixed. She thought it foolish to repair her dishwasher in her mid 80's. After all, both of her parents had died really young, and she had nearly doubled that. So why waste the money. After hearing her story we bought her a new dishwasher that year. She used it for nearly 9 years.
How many things have we put on the back burner and maybe even stopped thinking about sometimes because we didn't see a way for it to happen, it became too hard or it became a burden. Maybe like the woman and her dishwasher didn't want to spend the money.
Is there someone the Lord has ask you to witness too and we haven't done it. Have you been asked to do something in the Church and you didn't do it or be on a committee and we turned it down.
Are there things we want to do now but there are something or things holding us back. Sometimes we make our own quicksand or roadblocks. We say “well I just can’t right now.” “I don’t have enough time.” I’m not talented in that way.” “Trust me when I say any Choir Director will let you sing in the Choir.” “Things like attending Sunday School or United Methodist Women meeting.”
Or fixing that dishwasher.
I had a lady at a church I served that after every discussion about anything she would stand up and say “Let's just pray about it and let God fix it.” She would dismiss everything and just let God do it. Failing to understand that God works through His people. God has given us common since, knowledge and understand to use as we let God walk with us to fix our problems.
I would bet a cup of coffee that just about everyone here has read or heard this verse quoted:
James 5:7
Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains.
Some forget that there was a lot of work that went into planting the precious fruit of the earth before they waited for God to do his thing.
Isaiah 64:4
For since the world began, no ear has heard and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for him!
Sometimes the actual word 'waiting' or the phrase 'waiting on God' or 'waiting upon God' is used in a scriptural passage. The truth is Waiting is one of the hardest things in our walk with Christ. Yet the Bible is clear, yes very clear throughout the Bible that just because you are waiting on your breakthrough, it does not mean that you are doing nothing.
Remember the farmer in James 5:7? He dug the ground, he fertilized, planted the crops, and carried water to the plants to get them started. Then he waited on the Lord to send the early and late rains.
We have some farmers here today so I ask? After your crops are in the ground didn't you have to work on other things? The house, the barn, bring in hay or purchase it. And if your dishwasher is broke you fix it?
Waiting on the Lord doesn’t mean that we stop.
In Exodus 14:15 God said to Moses this:
When the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.”
Don’t be a cry baby! Take care of your Church that the Lord has given us. Take care of your family. Serve your God with all your Heart, Mind and Soul to the best of your abilities and your love for Christ.
So my message this morning can be summed up in two words straight from God:
? MOVE ON.
