LEARNING TO WAIT IN JOY AND GLADNESS
By Wade Martin Hughes, Sr. Kyfingers@aol.com
This is #5 in a series on waiting.
1. Waiting and Patience -- the dirty words? ; 2. Habakkuk’s Waiting Room; 3. Danger of waiting and spiritual rust;
4. The five levels of waiting; 5. Waiting with Joy and gladness 6. Long waits and sudden answers; 7. TEPID WAITING; 8. Waiting with a fire in my bones!
As we learn to wait on God and His plan, we must recognize there is a war in the eternal.
The battle is temporal vs. eternal, bondage vs. freedom, carnal vs. spiritual.
One of the greatest concerns in this battle is: we will accept facts, feelings, and
circumstances: and thus compromise our faith.
FAITH NOT FACTS PLEASES GOD. FAITH KNOWS WE MUST WAIT ON GOD.
FAITH KNOWS WE MUST WAIT ON GOD’S PLAN.
Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please God, ---
A LESSON WHILE WE WAIT:
WHEN YOU FIND IT HARD TO PRAY --- PRAY HARD!
Have you ever found yourself waiting for God in a time of trouble?
There must be a lesson here? Thank God for the crumbs from the table, but IT IS OUR TIME!
Hebrews 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the Throne of Grace, that we may obtain
mercy, and find grace to help in a time of trouble.
Waiting will make you better, or waiting will make you weaker? The choice is up to you.
Think about MINDSETS and how they effect/ affect us?
Let me tell you a dumb story to make my point.
An old man was driving an old car down a dumping old road.
It was raining and mud puddles were in the road.
This old man hit one of them dumb pot holes in the road and one of his old
bald tires had a blow out.
The old man got out of the car, he was very angry, as he kicked the flat tire, he got so
mad, and he got even madder as he opened his trunk and found out he did not have a lug
wrench with him.
By now the old man was so furious, it was raining, a flat tire, and no lug wrench.
The old man noticed the lights were on in the farm house down the road.
In the dark, as he walked down the road, he tripped and fell in a mud puddle.
He thought to himself, when I get to the farmer’s house he will be in bed sleeping.
He thought that old farmer is probably a republican and he is very stingy, and that dumb old
farmer will not want to loan me his dumb old lug wrench.
After walking in the dark, the old man was really fuming thinking about that farmer and how miserly
he was going to be. The man knew that farmer would not be willing to share his dumb old lug wrench
with him.
Finally the wet old man climbed the stairs on the porch and knocked on the farm house door.
WHO IS IT? asked the farmer.
The old, wet, angry man yelled back: YOU KNOW GOOD AND WELL WHO IT IS. AND I WILL
TELL YOU SOMETHING RIGHT NOW, I DON’T EVEN WANT TO BORROW YOUR DUMB OLD LUG WRENCH.
The farmer wondered: WHAT WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?
You see, as the old man was waiting and walking, his attitude formed and he had his mind made up
before he ever heard what the farmer might say.
We must learn as we wait on God and come boldly before Him.
AN ORDER FROM HELL WHILE YOU WAIT.
We need to know the tactics of our enemy and guard our hearts to minimize his tactics from
being effective. As we WAIT on the Lord, we need to identify what God has planned for today.
We need to not try and change God’s message on waiting, we must let His Message change us!
Psalms 118:24 This is the day that the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
THERE ARE SEVERAL FACTS WE NEED TO KNOW:
Psalms 118 is the middle chapter of the whole Bible.
FACT #1:
God is our Creator. God made today, and today is God’s gift to you!
FACT#2:
You will do something with today.
Your choices and your MINDSET --- (your thinking habits and patterns reinforced by previous
choices) will be the motivators of what you will do with today.
While God made today, it is your choice what you will do with this day God hath made.
FACT #3:
Psalms 118:24 clearly states these previous two facts but the third fact is an
IMPERATIVE COMMAND, it is an order!
As we WAIT, we are supposed to REJOICE and BE GLAD in this day that God has made.
If we do not REJOICE and BE GLAD we have wasted this day and the purpose of this day.
AS WE WAIT, we must have the mental and emotional discipline to make our hearts REJOICE
and BE GLAD. This is not always an easy task.
You can make the choice --- I AM GOING TO REJOICE AND BE GLAD --- if you want to -- ?
You can make the choice as you wait to be angry, offended, and bitter. It is up to you?
Know, as we wait upon the Lord, that if we choose to use this day for anything other than what
God has designed it for --- THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES.
YOU CAN CHOOSE OTHERWISE IF YOU SO DESIRE. It is up to you.
As we WAIT UPON GOD and approach this day that God hath made we will approach this day
with one of two mindsets.
The choice is up to you? You decide.
You have made these decisions every day of your life for many years.
You have become a product of your choices. You are what you choose.
Then our choices seal us, and we are set free or trapped by our MINDSET!
MINDSET CHOICE #1: PESSIMISM:
ARE YOU INCLINED TO EXPECT THE WORSE AS YOU WAIT ON THE LORD?
Do you emphasize the aspects, conditions, and possibilities of bad outcomes?
This doctrine of pessimism can be the reality of evil.
Does evil overcome good? Does sadness overbalance happiness?
Pessimism is a type of hopelessness and lack of faith.
Pessimism is being disagreeable, and works in fear and worry.
ARE YOU INCLINED TO TAKE THIS DAY THE LORD HAS MADE AND TALK DOOM AND GLOOM?
Don’t waste today!
Bad attitudes infect others, and infections grow.
What angers and disappoints you will control you if you carry a negative attitude.
HATE CAN NEVER CEASE HATE.
You can never overcome negativism, you must overwhelm it.
MINDSET CHOICE#2: OPTIMISM WHILE YOU WAIT:
Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for the good to them that love
God, to them who are called according to His purpose.
An optimist sees the donut hole, a pessimist sees the hole.
One of the greatest gifts you can give God and yourself is OPTIMISM!
OPTIMISM IS BEING INCLINED TO PUT FORTH FAVORABLE CONSTRUCTION UPON ACTIONS
AND EVENTS.
Optimism is a hopeful attitude. Optimism dreams of a better day!
Did you hear about the optimist that fell off a 110 story building?
Someone yelled at him from the 50th floor window --- HOW IS IT GOING?
He replied: SO FAR, SO GOD!
God is all powerful and has all wisdom, HE KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING!
God is in control! Do you know that all things work together for the good to them that love Him.
We must minimize adversity, and know good comes out of pain and out of evil.
It is the Satanic strategy to: KEEP YOU FROM JOY AND GLADNESS.
A Christian without joy is like: a car without oil, a boat with a big hole in the bottom,
like a church without love.
A Christian waiting without JOY and GLADNESS will always be a SPIRITUAL PYGMY.
As you WAIT, learn to use today for what it was designed, used today to REJOICE AND BE GLAD.
ARE YOU WAITING AND LIVING ACCORDING TO GOD’S WILL AND PURPOSE?
Spiritual waiting in anger, pouting, bitterness, and discouraged depression will always hinder
you from achieving what God desires for you.
We know that man’s ways lead to a hopeless end; but God’s ways lead to endless hope!
It is not how big the battle you face, it is how big a fight is in you and how big your trust
in God is.
A REAL ISSUE WHILE WE ARE WAITING ON GOD:
IF YOU ALWAYS THINK THE WAY YOU HAVE ALWAYS THOUGHT!
IF YOU ALWAYS DO WHAT YOU HAVE ALWAYS DONE, YOU WILL ALWAYS GET WHAT
YOU HAVE ALWAYS GOT.
HOW INSANE IS IT TO WANT THINGS DIFFERENT AND STAY THE SAME?
IF YOU DON’T LIKE WHAT YOU ARE GETTING, CHANGE WHAT YOU ARE GIVING.
An optimist knows and faith knows that while you wait:
If God brings you to it, God will bring you through it.
God will either lighten your load, or God will strengthen your back.
WHILE WE WAIT THERE ARE SEVERAL NEGATIVES TO AVOID:
FEAR NOT!
FRET NOT!
FAINT NOT!
FORGET NOT!
If your closets are full of skeletons, you need to dig a grave and bury the skeletons.
If you are waiting on God, angry and bitter, it is time to have a paradigm shift and
REJOICE AND BE GLAD!
His servant, Wade Martin Hughes, Sr. Kyfingers@aol.com
Help me? Pass this on to another?
