A Course in Miracles: Waiting 301
05.20.05
Pastor Mark Batterson
This evotional concludes A Course in Miracles. Our next series will be The Game of Life beginning in June. To check out old evotionals visit the evotional archive @ www.theaterchurch.com.
Waiting Rooms
I went to see the doctor on my day off last week and it took two hours and forty-five minutes! It wasn’t exactly the way I wanted to spend my day off. The first thing the doctor said when he came into the exam room was, “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.” This little part of me was thinking, “Have you never been to see the doctor, Doctor? Are you actually surprised that I had to wait? I’ve never not had to wait inordinate amounts of time. Thanks for the apology, but it seems a little disingenuous.” Someone needs to do a study and find out how much time Americans spend in doctor’s waiting rooms each year.
Then I went to the pharmacy! Let me just say one thing. We put a man on the moon. It just seems to me that there has to be a way to have your prescription ready for you when you leave! How long does it take to put pills in a bottle?
So I spent my entire morning waiting for the doctor and in the afternoon I had to order a replacement remote for our TV. I know this is going to come as a shock, but we spent an entire year getting up and physically changing channels and turning the TV on and off.
So I called an 800-number to order the remote and I got put on hold for about five minutes. Then I spent about ten minutes giving a customer service agent all of my info from address and name to model number and serial number. Then she put me on hold. There are six words that strike fear into the hearts of impatient people: “Can I put you on hold?” I wanted to say “no” but she put me on hold before I had time to answer. And I think it was a rhetorical question.
So she put me on hold and I have this pavlovian fear of getting disconnected and having to go back to the “beginning of the line.” After holding for another seven minutes, which felt like seventeen minutes, she came back on and said, “I’m sorry, Sir. Our system malfunctioned. I need your information again.” It’s always a system error isn’t it? Just once I want someone to say, “It was a human error! I pressed the wrong button and we’ll have to start over again. I’m really sorry.”
So we started over again and about halfway through she put me on hold again! And this time someone else picked up the phone to confirm the model number on my TV. It was the wrong number. To make a long story short, this agent told me I couldn’t reorder my remote from them. I had to call Sears. Nice. Real nice!
I hate waiting. I don’t like waiting for food when I’m hungry. I don’t like waiting in traffic. I don’t like waiting in the store. I don’t like waiting for the light to change. I don’t like waiting for green eggs and ham. I don’t like waiting Sam I Am.
Day Nine
Here’s the thought that ran through my mind all last week: what if the disciples had quit praying on day nine? What if they had given up on day three or day seven or day nine? I think they would have forfeited the miracle that was right around the corner.
I hate waiting, but here’s the deal. If you want to experience a miracle you can’t just seek and believe. You’ve got to be willing to wait. Most of us love quick and easy miracles, but there is usually a season of waiting before a miracle happens. Unfortunately, most miracles are forfeited because we give up too soon. Learning how to wait is as important as learning how to seek and how to believe.
A Thousand Days
II Peter 3:8 says, “Do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promises as some understand slowness.”
I love the story I heard a few years ago about the man who was having a conversation with God. The man said, “God, how long is a million years to you?” God said, “A million years is like a second." The man asked, “How much is a million dollars to you?” God said, “A million dollars is like a penny.” The man said, “Could you spare a penny?” God said, “Sure, just wait a second.”
Sometimes that is how it feels isn’t it? I think all of us love easy answers to our questions and easy solutions to our problems. But easy answers and easy solutions produce shallow convictions. I think part of us wants easy miracles. We want miracles we hardly have to work for or pray for. But I think easy miracles produce shallow faith. The harder we have to work and the longer we have to pray the more faith a miracle produces.
Last week we climbed down a ladder into the foundation of Ebenezers, the coffeehouse we’re building on Capitol Hill. We used to lay hands on the walls of 205 F Street, the row house we own that is adjacent to 201 F Street, and ask God to give us that piece of property. We prayed for eight long years! Last week we laid hands on the other side of those walls. In fact, we traced our handprints onto the walls and wrote down Scriptures and promises and dreams that we are believing God for. Those handprints will be covered over by drywall and bricks, but they will always be there.
Buying 201 F Street and building a coffeehouse was humanly impossible eight years ago. We didn’t have the money. We didn’t have people. It was a crazy idea. But we were willing to wait. We tarried in prayer and the dream is becoming reality because we didn’t give up!
Dig for Miracles
God never promised us easy miracles. I think some of us think God is going to wave His wand and do miracles “on command.” But most miracles require us to pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on us.
God told the Israelite He was “giving” them the Promised Land right? But the inhabitants didn’t roll over and play dead. The Israelites had to fight for the miracle.
Here’s the deal. God’s gifts are free, but they aren’t easy to open. Have you ever seen a toddler try to open a really well-wrapped gift? That is what it’s like opening God’s gifts. They require a ton of effort to get open!
If we think it’s going to be easy we’ll get discouraged. The Israelites had to fight for it. They had to occupy it and weed it and plant it and harvest it and defend it. I think some of us expect miracles to just materialize, but we’ve got to pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on us.
Deuteronomy 8:7 says, “The Lord is bringing you into a good land--a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.”
I think there is a powerful principle in that last phrase: the miracle is buried somewhere. What we have to do is dig. God didn’t say, “There will be perfectly fashioned copper pipes and copper coins laying on the sidewalks.” He told them there was copper in the hills, but the Israelites had to go mining. They had to dig for the promise.
Take the Initiative
Waiting doesn’t mean sitting around twiddling your thumbs. It means taking the initiative. When NCC first got started we didn’t have a drummer and we desperately needed one. We were rhythmically-challenged. One day I felt like the Spirit of God was prompting me to buy a drum set “in faith.” We were barely making ends meet so a $400 investment was a big deal back then. I bought the drum set and our first drummer showed up the next Sunday!
I think we ought to be the most optimistic people on the planet. Those of us who are Spirit-filled and Spirit-led ought to live in a state of constant expectancy—watching and waiting to see what God is going to do next.
In Luke 2, there are two white-haired heroes that I’ve grown to love. Simeon and Anna are neotenic. They probably relied on their canes to support themselves physically, but they were young at heart. Luke 2:25 says this about Simeon. “Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the Temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took the boy in his arms and praising God, saying: ‘Sovereign, Lord, as you have promised you may not dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation’.”
The word “wait” means “to await with confidence and patience.” It is living in constant expectation. That is what God has called us to. And that is only possible as we focus on the promises of God.
Zoom Out
Let me tell you one of my secrets to staying upbeat and not getting discouraged when things don’t happen in my time line. When I’m discouraged it is usually because I’ve zoomed in on something in my life that I don’t like. I have an “off day” as a parent and I zoom in on it and I feel like a failure because I was impatient. Or I zoom in on a missed opportunity. And I’m filled with regret. Here is what I have to do. I zoom out and remember that I’m in it for the long haul. I’m a work in progress. I have to take the long view. And that helps me put things in perspective.
I think some of us get discouraged when God doesn’t meet our deadlines. And one of two things happens. Either we just give up on the miracle. We get discouraged and we stop believing, we stop praying, and we stop hoping. Or to use the analogy I used last week. We strike out so we stop getting into the batter’s box. We reason to ourselves that if we don’t swing we can’t miss. But the problem with that is this: you can’t get a hit either!
Seven Times
What if Naaman had only dipped in the Jordan six times? What if Elijah had only prayed for rain six times? What if the Israelites had only walked around Jericho six times?
They would have forfeited the miracles because they would have given up too soon. It’s always too soon to give up on God. But if we keep seeking and keep believing and keep waiting we’ll experience miracles!
Keep on keeping on!
I want to start in II Kings 5. If you have a Bible you can turn over there. Naaman was the commander of the army of King Aram. II Kings 5:1 says, “He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.” To make a long story short, the King of Aram sent him to Elisha the prophet to be healed.
II Kings 5:9—
Let me make a couple observations. I think most of us fall into the trap Naaman fell into. We want God the miracle to happen the way we want the miracle to happen. We develop these expectations of how God is going to do what God is going to do. And when it doesn’t happen when we want or how we want we get frustrated. That is what happens to Naaman. He says, “I thought he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.”
I think most miracles are forfeited because we give up too soon. Naaman had to dip in the Jordan River seven times before his leprosy was healed. Elijah prayed for rain seven times before a cloud appeared on the horizon. The Israelites marched around the city seven times before the walls came tumbling down. So here is what I wonder. What if Naaman had only dipped in the river six times? What if Elijah had only prayed for rain six times? What if the Israelites had only made six trips around the wall? I think the miracle would have been forfeited because they would have given up too soon.
Keep Praying
One of my favorite passages on the importance of prevailing in prayer is in Daniel 10. Daniel has a vision from God and he decided to fast. For three weeks it felt like the heavens were shut up. I often feel that way when I fast. I wonder why I’m even doing it because it doesn’t seem like God is speaking to me any more clearly. But there is usually a breakthrough that happens. For Daniel, it happens on Day twenty-one. This is so fascinating to me. Daniel is visited by an angel. The angel says, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me.” So the prayer was heard the moment it was prayed. But it took twenty-one days to answer the prayer because of spiritual opposition. For twenty days there is no understanding. I think Daniel might have thought to himself that all the fast was accomplishing was hunger pangs. But Daniel 10:14 says, “Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.” It took twenty days for him to get clarity. We want clarity now. But sometimes we have to wait for the vision to make sense. Sometimes we have to wait for the promise to be fulfilled. Sometimes we have to wait for the miracle to happen.
Don’t Try to Manufacture the Miracle
So the first mistake is giving up. We quit praying on day nine! The second mistake is trying to manufacture a miracle.
I think most of us do what Abraham did when it seems like God is taking too long. We try to manufacture the miracle for Him. Instead of waiting on God, Abraham takes matters into his own hands and he decides to sleep with Sarah’s handmaiden named Hagar. And that attempt to manufacture the miracle causes more problems than it solves!
In his book Fresh Faith, Jim Cymbala says, “The hardest part of faith is often simply to wait. And the trouble is, if we don’t then we start to fix the problem ourselves—and that makes it worse.” That is precisely what Abraham does! Cymbala says, “We complicate the situation to the point where it takes God longer to fix it than if we had quietly waited for His working in the first place.”
