Few of us enjoy waiting. The old saying, “a watched pot never boils” tells me that people have been struggling with the concept of waiting for a long time. I get frustrated every time I go to a doctor’s office and have to wait for them to get ready for me. On the other hand I am very pleased to gain from them the benefit of their training and experience. Some things I have found just cannot be rushed. Take some chicken out of the freezer and put it on the BBQ. In about 15 or 20 minutes it will look real good, but cut it open and you’ll have Chicken Sashimi or at least raw chicken in the middle.
I like it when my kids wait for me and I don’t like waiting for them. I like it when they are ready and anticipating our next move. I don’t like prodding them to go. I imagine that God has a similar perspective with us. We need to recognize who we’re dealing with. We aren’t in a place to make the creator wait for us or jump to our call. Instead, we need to put ourselves in the place of the inferior and wait on God. God tells us to humble ourselves in His presence and he will lift us up.
How should this understanding impact our prayer? There are many ways in which this plays out, but one way is we need to wait on God. Waiting on God can mean patiently praying for things while waiting for the answer, but it also means patiently praying not in a hurry to go on to other things. The story of Jacob show’s us a tenacious determination to hold onto God until we’ve received what He has for us. This is terribly hard if we never slow down. Over and over I have to be reminded that I’m speaking with God, seeking not my will, but His. He has promised He will empower me, strengthen me, lift me up and so much more. If I want something from God I shouldn’t be in a rush, asking and running away.
When I was younger I really wanted to buy a portable stereo. I researched. I talked about it. I saved my money. In the end I found the best thing on the market and even found an open box demo $30.00 less than anywhere else. When I went to buy it my Dad told me to keep my money and he paid for it himself. Wow! I was blown away. I had not expectation he would do that, but he did it because he felt I had gone through a very good process and had learned well how to handle my money. So he let me keep the money and have the boom-box. We still listen to it today and it still sound great some 20 years later.
My Dad could have just gone and got me a boom-box when he heard I wanted one, but that wasn’t his interest. His interest was seeing that I grew to be responsible. Like any good father, God wants us to grow. At times that means learning to spend time waiting on Him, staying in prayer until He responds. It always means allowing Him to have His way. He even did this with Jesus. It’s interesting to note how many times, before some major event, Jesus went out to a lonely place the night before and prayed through the night. He too needed to let the Father have His time.
Is it possible that God has way more for us if we’ll just wait on Him? I’m sure he does. If I want to gain the benefit of His wisdom and knowledge, his help and strength, his comfort, then I need to be willing to wait on His timing and give myself over to time spent with Him. Join us and listen to Pastor Mike Rody’s message Waiting on God from his Series on Prayer. I pray it will inspire you to take more time to linger with God or as the old time Pentecostals said, “tarry at the altar”.
General Council of the Assemblies of God