Waiting, huh?

Has there ever been a time in your life, possibly a season, when you seem to be waiting on God without answer?  Have you ever been the one caught tapping your foot on the floor in anticipation of what God is doing- maybe what he even told you he was doing, but the time was ticking by and nothing seemed to be happening? So often in life we know God is going to work in our lives, in the lives of others, and we can see that the stage is set for God to do something big, yet our foot is still tapping.  We wait.  We wonder why we are waiting.  We wonder if God is going to come through.  Expectation meets anticipation, but after time ticks by, our eager awaiting then slides into the slippery slope of “Are you really there, God?”

I was recently reminded through my morning devotion that God’s timing is not always our timing.  Believe me.  I know it is hard to wait on God sometimes.  Just to give myself some credibility to that statement, I wanted to share some things that I’ve had to wait for.  

            Anybody that wrestles with chronic pain knows that it gets to you after a while. In a few days it will be the two-year anniversary of the accident that changed my life forever.  I know what it is like to wait short term and long term. Waiting for pain meds to work against a migraine seems to never come soon enough.  Waiting for the ability to kayak with our kids seems to drag on like a peanut butter drip in the dead of winter.  

It’s not all bad though.  Sometimes we can become impatient waiting on good things to happen.  How about the birth of a child?  In my case, how about waiting on the birth of a new book?  It is painfully hard to wait sometimes for all the final touches to get settled or put together right before a book release.  Sometimes I want to run outside and shout the newest idea into the hills so everybody can benefit from it months or maybe years before a final print is published. 

Sometimes we wait in prayer.  We know from scripture not to give up on waiting in expectation in asking God what we need.  Luke 18 gives us a perfect reference with the parable of the persistent widow.

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

            Has anyone else had to wait a while for answered prayer?  Though we wait, when God finally answers, it sure is sweet. I experienced this when my Grandfather was saved.  I had prayed for him for over ten years.  Ten years of prayers for his salvation.  Ten years is a long time to wait on something.  At times it was frustrating.  At times I thought it might not happen.  I still prayed.

Waiting.  What a bugger, right?

This week I was reading through my normal devotion and something jumped out at me in regard to waiting.  I saw a truth in scripture that maybe others already know about, but I didn’t see it till now.  So many times, we think we know what scripture says, only to actually read it and see something different.  Here is the passage that hit me like a ton of bricks.

Genesis 7:1-12

Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him.

Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.

In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature. They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the Lord shut him in. (emphasis added)

            What I want to point out to you today, is that Noah was first told to go into the ark while the sun was still shining.

            If the incredible miracle of God’s hand leading all the animals into the ark by two’s was wasn’t remarkable enough by itself, it was started long before the rains began coming down.  Seven days, actually.

            Now I don’t know about you, but when God leads me, and I act, and then I have to wait. . . it’s hard!  It’s hard to sit on what God tells you to do.  Sometimes it seems as though there is little to no profit to obeying him in times like these.  In Noah’s case, there was no rain yet.  There might not have even been a cloud in the sky.  Yet Noah was told to start boarding, and he obeyed in faith and virtue. How many times do we sit in the ark of God’s will and wonder if things are really going to happen the way he says they will?

            But do you know what?  God had a plan.  It came across my mind this week that if Noah wouldn’t have gotten things situated a week in advance, he wouldn’t have been able to at all.  You see, once the rains started coming, could you imagine trying to get the world’s greatest undertaking to date accomplished such a short notice?  Do you think it would have been easy then?  More so, think of the safety of those inside the ark. If they would have waited until the rain began to board the ark, mass confusion and chaos would have gone wild. I could see it like a horror show, or possibly something to the effect of a zombie apocalypse, where the wicked would have clawed their way into the big ship to flee the rain, pushing the righteous aside and pushing out the animals God wanted to keep alive.  Take a minute to envision what it would have been like.  Catastrophic chaos.  I can only imagine how many people tried to climb on board once it was too late.

            In the same way, you and I are told to obey often in life.  Events might not be as epic as a world-wide flood, but still, there are things that God is working that you and I have no clue or concept of. We can’t see the big picture.  God tells us to do things for a reason, and that reason, is always for our own good.  Noah was told there would be seven days until things were going to start shaking. We are not so fortunate to know the exact timetable God is going to answer us with. . . but we still need to be patient.  Even, if the sun is still shining.  Could it have been that Noah’s sons and their wives might have wondered if it was actually going to happen?  How many times do you think they peeked at the sky to check?  Do you think that they might have questioned God’s timetable?

            It is not always easy to wait for God once we obey.  There are times in life when it might look like there is a beautiful sky above, the cool breeze feels better outside, and it would seem harmless to do things our own way and in our own timing.

            But when the Lord finally shuts the door, you will see how much planning he has already done on your behalf.  He knows what he is doing.  Even when it doesn’t look like it.

            Take heart.  Keep praying. Don’t lose heart in your obedience in God.

            He has you right where he wants you.

By Chuck Carr