I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. Psalm 27:13-14 (NIV)
How good are you at waiting? Yes, you, and I can see you ducking. Our entire culture is not good at waiting, we don’t see it as a virtue but as a failure of someone or something, as something interrupting our happiness. It has to happen now, quickly, and hopefully, sooner than later. Have you noticed? The COVID-19 crisis did not care one bit about making us wait, putting our plans on hold, for who knows how long. By now we can’t wait for things to get back to some kind of normal. So again, how good are you at waiting? Since you are, for some reason, refusing to answer, take the following test. Mark all the ones you would have a hard time with:
Waiting for 2000 years. Christians have now been waiting for almost 2000 years for Jesus to return and who knows how much longer it will be (2 Peter 3:3-10).
Waiting for 400 years. God told Abraham that his descendants would have to wait for hundreds of years to be delivered from the tyranny of Egypt (Genesis 15:13).
Waiting for 70 years. The rebellious remnant exiled to Babylon was told they had to wait for seventy years before any of them could return. (Jeremiah 29:10)
Waiting for 7 weeks. After Jesus’ ascension, the disciples had to wait seven weeks for the promised Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49, Acts 1:8)
Waiting for 1 week. Saul, because he saw his troops defecting, couldn’t wait for more than a week for the prophet Samuel to arrive (1 Samuel 13:8-11).
Waiting for 1 day. Naomi told her daughter-in-law Ruth to relax, be patient, and wait a day for Boaz to take care of things.
Waiting for 1 hour. The disciples were emotionally and physically tuckered out they couldn’t wait for an hour when Jesus asked them to sit and wait until He had prayed (Matthew 26:36-41)
Our chief problem with waiting is that we run out of time even if we beat the life-expectancy statistics. But we don’t just run out of time in general, we don’t get to be kids forever, opportunities pass, the chance to have children diminishes, the time to adequately store up for retirement vanishes, you can’t realize your dreams by waiting forever, ...God on the other hand never runs out of time, He is the Eternal One, the Inventor and Creator of time and space.
Have you ever considered what it must have been like for Jesus, the eternal Son of God, in his incarnation, to restrict himself to time, to waiting, to running out of time?Some of Satan’s major temptations thrown at Jesus were regarding waiting and time (Luke 4:1-8). “You’re hungry! So, why wait? Just turn these stones into bread?” “You’re supposed to be king of everything! Why waste time waiting for God’s long-winded plan filled with suffering? You can be king now; all you have to do is worship me.” When it comes to waiting Satan assumes at least four things:
We are not good at waiting. There is not a single baby who is good at waiting, “Feed me, change me, hold me, adore me – NOW!” Our needs scream out, our wants demand satisfaction, our dreams whisper to us, “You don’t have forever,” none of them encourage us to wait.
Our sinfulness hates waiting, self-denial, submission to God’s will and ways. “Waiting to have sex until you are married – get real!” “Staying out of debt and waiting to buy things until you can pay for things? – What about your credit score? Dummy!”
Waiting becomes more difficult the longer we have to wait. Have you experienced rising anxiety as you waited patiently in an airport check-in lane, realizing that at this pace you will miss your flight? Consciously or subconsciously we are aware of and afraid of missing out, that opportunities are not endless because life isn’t.
We make serious mistakes when we operate out of impatience, impulsiveness, and give in to FOMO (fear of missing out).
As busy as Satan might be in our waiting, God is even more so. He is the one who is in charge of time, so, if God has us waiting, we can safely assume that we we’re not wasting time or opportunity. God is not inactive when he has us waiting, He is actually growing us, developing us, shaping us – Jesus thought so.
To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans
P.S. For more waiting click here to watch the 04/26/20 sermon - www.LDPBaptistChurch.com