Waiting on God
OPENING JOKE: A group of travelers were being made to wait on their airplane, which was late due to another flight being canceled. The crowd looked horrible and impatient as the time went on and on. Finally an angry passenger pushed his way to the front of the line, slammed his ticket down and said, “I must be on this flight now and I must be in first class”. The flight attendant, trying to be nice said, “Sir, we will get to you as soon as possible, but you must wait in line like everyone else”. He quickly said, “Ma’am, do you have any idea who I am?”
Without hesitation, she smiled, picked up her intercom microphone and said, “We have a passenger here at the gate WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come to gate 17.”
Zachariah and Elizabeth Luke 1:5-25
I have spent hours waiting in the woods on deer to come and show themselves.
I heard Charles Stanley message the same day coming out of Wal mart parking lot-Waiting on God
Psalms 27, 62
A pastor friend told how one grandson got cold at 10am left, and the other grandson killed a six point at 11am. If only I had waited the first kept saying.
A pastor told of being in the store the other day and the person in front of him wanted to leave, but her receipt was slow coming out of the cash register. She started making motions with her hand trying to speed up the printing of her receipt. As he watched her he was amused until he realized how many times he had done the very same thing. He had become impatient waiting for the printer to print, the coffee to brew, and the light to change. We who live in this culture of convenience and instant gratification have lost the art of waiting. People in places like Russia may wait in line for hours for a loaf of bread. People in places like Afghanistan may wait weeks. But we are irritated if the line at McDonald’s isn’t moving fast enough.
We are now entering the holiday season with the challenge of gift selection and buying that requires us to travel to stores whose parking lots, and the drive to get to there, try our patience. I recently came across a saying that I think would make a great bumper sticker for us to place on our cars. - "Don’t give up. It took Noah six months to find a parking place."
Ah, patience! We find it in short supply these days. We seek it in the grocery store line, at the ATM, when we hook-up to the Internet, when we are late for class or school or work, when we are trying to get to church on time, when have to go to the bathroom, and I mean really go, and there is a long line.
We do a better job of practicing impatience that patience. We have those smart aleck signs in our car windows that indicate our great impatience with drivers of other vehicles and what we believe their chief character defects to be.
We scream at our computers when they take so long to start-up or suddenly slow down. We yell at our children to slow down when they are going bonkers and yell at them to speed up when they are going at a snail’s pace.
We are in such a hurry these days. Why is patience in such short supply?
Saul didn’t wait for Samuel to do the Sacrifice.
The disciples waited 10 days at Pentecosr
Abraham didn’t wait on God for child and made a mess with Hagar.
Simeon waited for the Messiah and saw the baby Jesus.
Absalom did not wait to be crowned king so he tried to take it by force.
In this scripture the Jews had been waiting for the messiah for centuries. Elizabeth and Zachariah had prayed for a child for many years, but after waiting past the normal child bearing years they gave up praying. Zachariah could not even believe it when an angel from heaven told him. His prayers he had prayed long ago were just now coming to pass. After many years of waiting.
I WHAT IS WAITING ON GOD?
Waiting for God is not laziness. Waiting for God is not going to sleep. Waiting for God is not the abandonment of effort. Waiting for God means, first, activity under command; second, readiness for any new command that may come; third, the ability to do nothing until the command is given. - G. Campbell Morgan
Restless Heart Leads to a Reckless Life
Warren Wiersbe makes the observation, “The ability to calm your soul and wait before God is one of the most difficult things in the Christian life. Our old nature is restless...the world around us is frantically in a hurry. But a restless heart usually leads to a reckless life.”
Men’s Life, Spring, 1998
II WHY DOES GOD MAKE US WAIT?
A. To increase our Trust or Faith in Him.
-when he comes through after a period of waiting we trust him more. (Elizabeth sky high)
Not long before his death, Henri Nouwen wrote a book called Sabbatical Journeys, in which he wrote about some friends of his who were trapeze artists, called the Flying Roudellas. They told Nouwen that there is a special relationship between the flyer and the catcher on the trapeze. This relationship is governed by important rules, such as “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. 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. One of the Flying Roudellas told Nouwen, “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.
Nouwen said, “Waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting.” Waiting is not a static state, it is a time when God is working behind the scenes, and the primary focus of his work is on us.
B. To Mature our Faith - David was annointed king at 16 but was not crowed king until 30.
-Maturity is learning to wait for things. Like our children
C. To work out the answer on God’s perfect timetable.
-it had to be six monthes before Jesus was to be born.
-Mary was not born when they began praying for a child
-It was in the Fullness of Time God sent his son Gal.
Joseph and Dreams, Prison
D. Demonic Interference Daniel 10
E. To Draw us to him-
-While waiting we seek him more for an answer
-that is why he gives guidance one step at a time
-if we had the whole plan we would run ahead and do it without him, and get it wrong
F. God has a better Answer in the Works-
-Mary and Martha and Lazarus
III WHAT SHOULD WE DO WHILE WAITING ON GOD?
A. Continue to faithfully serve Him.
-Zach. Didn’t give up or quit serving God, he continued to serve as priest for years
B. Examine Your motives and Your requests
-James says "You don’t get what you ask because your requests are just selfish You ask amiss -
-You may change your mind and change you requests over time
C. Continue to Expect God to Intervene
-We often give up too quick
-Zachariah did in this story
Gary Preston tells a story in his book Character Forged from Conflict, that illustrates how we are to wait. He writes: “Back when the telegraph was the fastest means of long-distance communication, there was a story, perhaps apocryphal, about a young man who applied for a job as a Morse code operator. Answering an ad in the newspaper, he went to the address that was listed. When he arrived, he entered a large, noisy office. In the background a telegraph clacked away. A sign on the receptionist’s counter instructed job applicants to fill out a form and wait until they were summoned to enter the inner office. The young man completed his form and sat down with seven other waiting applicants. After a few minutes, the young man stood up, crossed the room to the door of the inner office, and walked right in. Naturally the other applicants perked up, wondering what was going on. Why had this man been so bold? They muttered among themselves that they hadn’t heard any summons yet. They took more than a little satisfaction in assuming the young man who went into the office would be reprimanded for his presumption and summarily disqualified for the job. Within a few minutes the young man emerged from the inner office escorted by the interviewer, who announced to the other applicants, ‘Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming, but the job has been filled by this young man.’ The other applicants began grumbling to each other, and then one spoke up, ‘Wait a minute! I don’t understand. He was the last one to come in, and we never even got a chance to be interviewed. Yet he got the job. That’s not fair.’ The employer responded, ‘All the time you’ve been sitting here, the telegraph has been ticking out the following message in Morse code: “If you understand this message, then come right in. The job is yours.” None of you heard it or understood it. This young man did. So the job is his.’”
The young man got the job because he was not just waiting — all of the other men were waiting — but he was waiting expectantly. We are all sitting in the waiting room. But it is how we wait, and what we do with the waiting, that is important. The young man in that office was listening. And because he was, he was rewarded. Waiting does not mean just sitting down and doing nothing. You have to be watching and looking for God to fulfill his promise. You have to believe he is going to do it. It is possible to get ahead of God when we try to work things out ourselves, but it is also possible that we could miss what he is doing because we are just waiting without expecting God to really come through
D. Continue to pursue the Answer in Prayer
-Zachariah Didn’t in this account
-Luke 19 -Jesus parable of The unjust judge
-Daniel example - 21 days prayer and fasting before the answer came
E. Trust God by waiting patiently for Him to act on your behalf
-He will come
F. Don’t Lose Hope while waiting
-Job waited in pain, wanted to die but held on to hope
IV WHAT THINGS SHOULD WE WAIT FOR?
-To find a Christian spouse -
-To have sex until your married
-Wait until your 22 to get married
-Wait until you have cash to buy
-Wait for God to heal your marriage
-Wait for God to save your family
Conclusion: Every child of God has had to go through times of waiting in their journey of faith. It is a necessary part of the Christian Life. God will not spoil us so we become worthless human beings, by giving us whatever we want the moment we ask. He wants to stretch our faith and grow us into mature believers in times of waiting.
Which Way Is Up?
Some years ago I read about a speedboat driver who had recently survived a racing accident. He said that he had been at near top speeds when his boat veered slightly and hit a wave at a dangerous angle. The combined force of his speed and the size and angle of the wave sent the boat spinning crazily into the air. He was thrown from his seat and propelled deeply into the water—so deep, in fact, that he had no idea which direction the surface was. He had to remain calm and wait for the buoyancy of his life vest to begin pulling him up. Once he discovered which way was up, he could swim for the surface.
Sometimes we find ourselves surrounded by confusing options, too deeply immersed in our problems to know “which way is up.” When this happens, we too can remain calm, waiting for God’s gentle tug to pull us in the proper direction. Our “life vest” may be other Christians, Scripture, or some other leading from the Holy Spirit, but the key is recognizing our dependency upon God and trusting him.
