Learn to wait

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Jeremiah 45-48;  Psalm 25

TO CHEW ON: "'Show me Your ways, O Lord;
Teach me Your paths.
Lead me in Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my salvation;
On You I wait all the day." - Psalm 25:4,5

Are you good at waiting? I confess I'm not. From a child the importance of being prompt has been drummed into me. I like meetings to start on time. I am rarely late for anything. But God is—or so it seems.

In our reading today, David talks about waiting. He uses the word wait (qavah) twice in reference to his relationship with God: "On You I wait all the day" and "….I wait for you" - Psalm 25:5,21.

There's a subtle difference between saying we wait on God and we wait for Him. Really, though, it's two sides of the same coin. Waiting for Him could imply that we're waiting for Him to arrive. Of course He is present everywhere all the time, so the absence (lack of presence) we feel is due to our faulty perception.

Waiting on Him implies that He's here, with us, but we need Him to show His hand, to act, to come through for us in some way.

In our reading it seems the psalmist David is waiting on God for enlightenment about how to live and for His endorsement of David's trust,  integrity and uprightness of action (or perhaps lack of action).

Other passages illustrate more riches available to those who wait on God:

• Courage - Psalm 27:14

• Inheritance - Psalm 37:9

• Defense - Psalm 59:9

• Salvation - Psalm 62:1

• Mercy and Justice - Psalm 123:2; Hosea 12:6.

• Vindication - Proverbs 20:22

• Hope - Isaiah 8:17

• Strength - Isaiah 40:31

An article about waiting in my Bible adds even more perspective:

"To wait upon the Lord is to foster a sensitivity both to His presence and His promptings which quiets our hearts, focuses our minds through thanksgiving and praise, and allows Him to reveal any subtle attitudes or forgotten sins that would dull our sensitivity to His voice (Psalm 66:18). Accept the NT call to fasten the belt of your mind (1 Peter 1:13), meditate on God's Word, and respond with focused worship. Dedicate times alone with God for waiting and for interaction with Him" Steven Fry, "The Discipline of Waiting," New Spirit-Filled Life Bible, p. 704.

PRAYER: Dear God, I am so easily impatient. Help me to learn the discipline of waiting for You and on You so I don't mess up and confuse situations with my impulsive actions. Amen.


PSALM TO PRAY: Psalm 25

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The Holy Bible, New King James Version Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. - Used with permission.

Stay the waiting course

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Isaiah 61-64; Psalm 120

TO CHEW ON: "For since the beginning of the world

Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear,

Nor has the eye seen any God besides You,

Who acts for the one who waits for Him." Isaiah 64:5

Do you like to be kept waiting? I don't! But God, whose wisdom trumps our likes and dislikes, may often keep us waiting.

[Wait means 1) To stay or remain in expectation as of an anticipated action or event. 2) To be or remain in readiness. 3) To remain temporarily neglected or undone.]

Isn't that third definition apt? For when we are kept waiting, neglected is just how we feel.

The Bible is full of people who God kept waiting.

• Abraham and Sarah waited for an heir. When they got impatient and tried to achieve this their own way (through Abraham having Ishmael by Sarah's maid Hagar) they brought trouble into their lives.

• Samuel told King Saul to wait for him to offer a sacrifice before he (Saul) went to war. When members of his army started slipping away, Saul grew impatient and offered the sacrifice himself. Samuel arrived at the end of the ceremony and told Saul that because of his disobedience, the kingship would be taken from his family (1 Samuel 13:1-15).

• The disciples, on the other hand, waited in Jerusalem as Jesus had told them to, until the Holy Spirit descended. Then, indwelt with God's power, they "turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6).

Are you waiting for something today? Take heart from today's verse and words like David's in Psalm 37 as you stay the waiting course:

"Commit your way to the Lord

Trust also in Him

And He shall bring it to pass...

Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him

Do not fret..." (Psalm 37:5-7).

PRAYER: Dear God, please help me to commit my way to You and wait for You to "bring it to pass" and "act" for me. Amen


PSALM TO PRAY: Psalm 120

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

In for the long haul

TODAY'S SPECIAL: James 5:7-20

TO CHEW ON: "Therefore be patient, brethren … Establish your hearts … You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful" James 5:7,8,11

If there's anything we moderns find hard it's exercising patience. Our fast-paced world of instant communication has us drugged on speed.

We keep our phones constantly on our persons so we see text messages and alerts milliseconds after they're sent and can respond.

Satellite communication has us witnessing events across the globe practically in real time.

Want an update on a news event or sports score? Check Twitter and you'll probably have your answer long before the information hits a bona fide paper.

James makes a plea to his readers for patience which we do well to heed. He presents it from several angles.

1. We need to follow the example of the patient farmer who works in the realm of nature. The "fruit of the earth" needs time and rain (James 5:7).

2. We need to "establish" our own hearts ("strengthen and confirm them in the final certainty" - James 5:8 AMP). I understand this to mean give our faith time to grow both in understanding and experience.

3. We need to follow the example of the patient prophets who were God's obedient mouthpieces during their times. James doesn't say it be we know that most of them never saw their words fulfilled. They had faith and patience that extended past their own lifetimes (James 5:10).

4. We need perseverance—"the perseverance of Job"—who saw his trial through to the other side, to 'the end intended by the Lord," and so proved God's love and mercy - James 5:11.

Today I speak to myself more than anyone:

• Be patient.

• Establish your heart.

• Persevere—through personal, career, family, church, community, national, international challenges and issues. Persevere in faithfulness to God and prayer (James 5:13-18)—and I (you too) will see "the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful."

PRAYER: Dear Father, I confess that I am often impatient. Help me to learn patience as I trust in You and grow deep in You through time and the challenges of my life.
 
MORE: "Deliver us from the quick fix" - an article by Ed Cyzewski you might enjoy.


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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Descent into idolatry

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Exodus 32: 1-18

TO CHEW ON: "Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, 'Come, make us gods that shall go before us, for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." Exodus 32:1


The Israelites' descent into idolatry is frighteningly swift. As we read the story closely, we can detect some of the catalysts:

• Impatience: "...the people saw that Moses delayed..."

• Alienation from God/Moses and the new order that had begun. It's as if the people had never really bought into or identified with Moses and the lifestyle reforms and religious observances he had instituted under God's direction: They referred to him as if he were a stranger: "...this Moses, the man who brought us up out of Egypt..."

• Feeling abandoned: "...this Moses...we do not know what has become of him."

Aaron's reaction is surprising too. He doesn't offer any argument or resistance to their request. It's almost as if the same thing has been on his mind and he's all too eager to comply.

So despite the miracles of the journey—the Red Sea crossing, their GPS cloud, the bitter water of Mara turned sweet, the daily manna and more—they're back to the idol worshiping ways of Egypt. The ease with which they slip into their idolatrous celebration gives us reason to think such a practice may have been part of their Egypt experience.

I see several lesson from this story for me—for us.

1. Beware of impatience. Again and again in the Bible it sabotaged people, causing them to stray from God's best outcome (e.g. Abraham having a son by Hagar, Saul refusing to wait for Samuel to sacrifice and by this act forfeiting the monarchy of Israel to David's line).

2. Our quickness to fall back on our own devices may be evidence we aren't totally committed to doing life God's way. A knowledge of God's word and memorized Bible words can come to our rescue here. Also, have we cleaned out all the bits and pieces of our old lives so that it's hard to go back (thrown out the tarot cards, the astrology charts, the lucky charms, the books, CDs and DVDs that lure us to old ways of thinking, acting, being)?

3. When God feels absent, we can remind ourselves that no matter how it feels, God is never absent from any situation (Psalm 139:7-12).


PRAYER: Dear God, how easily I too slip into living by my own devices, doing things the old way, impatient with how slowly things are going, try to introduce action myself. Help me to learn from this sobering experience of the Israelites and the golden calf. Amen.

MORE: Our heart idols

"Idolatry is still a danger to the people of God, though it isn’t always so open or obvious. Idols are usually more subtle and hard to detect, for they set up their home in the hidden places of our heart.

If we want to know our idols, we need to consider our predominant thoughts, for what we think about most of the time may be an idol. Our last thought before we sleep, our first thought when we awake, our reveries throughout the day, are spent on the items and issues we treasure and trust. Any possession or person we put our hope in to bring us fulfillment, any goal or aspiration that becomes more important to us than God—these are the “gods” that attract our allegiance and subtly control our lives" - David H. Roper, Our Daily Bread Devotional for February 26, 2004.

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Anger—a red-light emotion

Image: Pixabay.com

TODAY'S SPECIAL: James 1:19-2:17

TO CHEW ON: "So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God." James 1:19,20


Any Christian who struggles with losing their temper has probably noticed, pondered, even memorized the above verses.

[The word translated wrath is the Greek word orge. It means anger, the natural disposition, temper, movement or agitation of the soul, impulse, desire, any violent emotion but especially anger.

The dictionary defines anger: a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility.]

But anger has many shades. We can see its range when we look at a list of synonyms. Here is only a partial list from Dictionary.com:  acrimony, animosity, annoyance, antagonism, blow up, cat fit, enmity, exasperation, fury, hatred, hissy fit, huff, impatience, indignation, irritability, outrage, peevishness, petulance, resentment, stew, temper, violence.

The Bible talks about anger in many places.

• Naaman's anger almost kept him from being healed -2 Kings 5:11.

• The anger of Sanballat, Tobiah & Co. over Nehemiah rebuilding the Jerusalem wall led to focused prayer, renewed vigilance by the builders and eventual success - Nehemiah 4:7.

• Jonah's anger at God not destroying Nineveh led to God teaching him a lesson under the hot Nineveh sun - Jonah 4:1-11.

• The writers of Psalms and Proverbs say about anger:

- It causes harm - Psalm 37:8.
- It is foolish - Proverbs 14;7; Ecclesiastes 7:9.
- Self control is noble - Proverbs 16:32; 19:11.
- Anger is a liability in friendship - Proverbs 22:24.

• Jesus pronounced harsh judgment against people who curse others in anger - Matthew 5:22.

• Paul named anger as one of the works of the flesh to put off - Colossians 3:8.

• He also listed a quick temper as a quality that disqualified a person for church leadership - Titus 1:7.

I love how the Amplified Bible puts meat on the bones of what anger and its opposite look like:

"Let everyone be quick to hear [be a careful, thoughtful listener], slow to speak [patient, reflective, forgiving]; for the [resentful, deep seated] anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God [that standard of behaviour which He requires of us] - James 1:19,20 AMP.

The Bible minces no words about the danger of anger. It's definitely a red light emotion for the Christian!

PRAYER: Dear Father, help me to recognize when anger is growing in me and to deal with the self-centered attitudes that are so often at its root. Amen.

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked AMP are taken from the Amplified® Bible,
Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation
Used by permission." (www.Lockman.org)

Bad choices and a bad end

Saul's Final Battle - Artist unknown

TODAY'S SPECIAL: 1 Samuel 31:1-13

TO CHEW ON: "So Saul, his three sons, his armor bearer, and all his men died together that same day." 1 Samuel 31:6

Here we read of Saul's death. How did he come to this humiliating end?

He began well. Samuel chose Saul and assured him of God's presence and help: " Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man." - 1 Samuel 10:6.

After only two years of being king, though, the trouble started. At war with the Philistines, Saul assembled an army then waited at Gilgal for Samuel to come and make an offering before they went into battle. He waited seven days and still no Samuel. When the army began to scatter, he took matters into his own hands and performed the sacrifice himself. No sooner had he finished than Samuel appeared and there were fireworks:

Samuel: ““You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.  But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.”" - 1 Samuel 13:13,14.

Sometime later, Samuel told him to fight the Amalekites. His instructions were "Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them" 1 Samuel 15:3. However, Saul obeyed only partially (1 Samuel 15:9), claiming he had spared the livestock as offerings. Then God sent Samuel to Saul with the another message:

“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
As in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
And to heed than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,
And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,He also has rejected you from being king” - 1 Samuel 15:22,23

Saul did have a long reign. Bible scholars believe he was around 20 years old when he was crowned and he reigned 40 years. But his time as king was overshadowed by the consequences of his impatience, lack of faith, disobedience, and rebellion. After God told him that the kingly succession would leave his family, suspicion and jealousy ruled his life (1 Samuel 20:30). Finally, after Samuel's death when he no longer heard from God at all, he was full of fear - 1 Samuel 28:8-20.

The sins for which Saul are known are hardly foreign to us. Who of us hasn't been tempted, perhaps gone through with enacting our own plans when God seemed slow to answer and our impatience got the best of us? Similarly, we are not strangers to disobedience, rebellion, suspicion, jealous, and fear.

There's no question that God was with Saul, and yet he ended so badly because he gave in to his natural tendency to do things on his own. May we learn from his life that such choices on our part will also have their consequences.


PRAYER: Dear God, help me to consistently exercise faith and choose to obey. Amen.
 
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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

WAIT—a small but difficult word

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Isaiah 40:18-31

TO CHEW ON: "But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31

Though "wait" is a theme of the advent season, it is definitely not my favorite thing to do. However, the ability to wait looms large in the life of the God-follower. A promise to those who "wait on the Lord" is the punchline of beautiful Isaiah 40 that we've read yesterday and today.

[Wait - qavah means to wait for, expect, hope, wait hopefully.]

Bible references help us see the array of circumstances in which we may need to "wait." David, for example, was a great believer in waiting.

• When unsure of what to do next, he resolved to wait for God's direction (Psalm 25:4,5).

• During a time of personal danger (when spied on by Saul, who intended to kill him) he waited on God to defend him (Psalm 59:9).

• To get the big prize. That would come to the one who waited on the Lord ("They shall inherit the earth" - Psalm 37:9).

• He waited patiently - not impatiently (Psalm 40:1).

• He waited silently without fretting or giving God suggestions on how to fix the situation (Psalm 62:1).

• He encouraged himself and his readers to keep on waiting even when things were great (Psalm 27:14).

The writer of Proverbs reminds us to wait for God instead of trying to "recompense evil" ourselves (Proverbs 20:22).


Isaiah picks up the challenge to wait. He says:

• We must "Wait on the Lord" when He seems absent and silent (Isaiah 8:17).

• We wait  on Him for energy, strength, and vitality (Isaiah 40:31 - today's focus verse). As we wait on Him, he renews us for tasks that take a burst of energy, to "… mount up with wings like eagles";  for tasks that take endurance: "They shall run and not be weary"; and for everyday, plodding life: "They shall walk and not faint."

• Finally, our waiting will vindicate us. We trusted in the right One:

Behold this is our God;
We have waited for Him and He will save us.
This is the Lord;
We have waited for Him;
We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation." - Isaiah 25:9.

Whatever our situation, let's join David, the writer of Proverbs, and Isaiah in waiting on God today.


PRAYER: Dear God, in my modern time of speed and instant, I feel stretched, antsy, even anxious when I need to wait. Help me to grasp Your trustworthiness and how much better it is to wait on You and for You than to take matters into my own hands. Amen. 

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

What our impatience says about us

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Psalm 78:21-39

TO CHEW ON: "But He, being full of compassion,
forgave their iniquity,
And did not destroy them.
Yes, many a time He turned His anger away,
And did not stir up His wrath."  Psalm 78:38

If you are a parent, are you a patient one? God, our heavenly Father is. In today's reading, after listing the ways the Israelites tried His patience, in response to which He did punish them, psalmist Asaph tells us He didn't take the ultimate action. He "… did not destroy them."

Why not?

Because He remembered their frailty: "…that they were but flesh" - Psalm 78:39.

Bible writers talk about God's patience (also called "long-suffering") in other passages. Here are a few that cast light on some aspects of God's patience.

1. Though sometimes in His long-suffering He appears forgetful, sin's consequences do ripple downstream to the third and fourth generations - Number 14:18.

2. He may sometimes defer His judgments "For My name's sake … And for My praise" -  Isaiah 48:9. In other words patience is part of His identity and His ways are typically ways of patience - Ezekiel 20:44.

3. His overarching plan calls for the right timing which means His lack of action on those who deserve punishment ("vessels of wrath") is part of His plan to reveal the ultimate "riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy" - Romans 9:22.

4. He intentionally delays judgement so that more people will repent. Peter says He is "…not willing that any should perish" - 2 Peter 3:9.

In a section on God's patience in his Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem touches on the fact that we are to imitate God's patience. Of course this is not news to us as we see patience held up as a virtue in many places: James 1:19; 1 Peter 2:20; Ephesians 4:2 and Galatians 5:22. I like how Grudem pounds in the practical nails of what that patience looks like in us:

"… patience requires a moment-by-moment trust in God to fulfill his promises in our lives at his chosen time. Our confidence that the Lord will soon fulfill his purposes for our good and his glory will enable us to be patient - James 5:8" - Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p.202 (emphasis added).

Flipped over we could say that our impatience actually speaks volumes about how much we aren't trusting God to be getting it right.

PRAYER: Dear God, thank You for Your patience with me. May my trust in You be deep and strong so that patience will be a natural fruit of my life. Amen.

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Patience to wait for God's time

Moses and the burning bush - Artist unknown

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Acts 7:17-38

TO CHEW ON: "'For he (Moses) supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. …"And now come, I will send you to Egypt."'" Acts 7:25, 34

 It's fascinating to get a glimpse into how Bible characters interpret Bible events. Here we see Stephen's version of the story of Moses.

He delves into Moses' mind a bit, adding a layer to the Exodus account of the same events (Exodus 2:11-15): "For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand…"

We can imagine young Moses, a Hebrew, raised by Pharaoh's daughter, mulling over why his life took the direction it did. There must be a reason. It must be to save his people. And so he decided to act on that conviction and the result was a murder committed and a 40-year detour herding sheep in the land of Midian.

But he was right in one thing. It was his destiny to free his countrymen. Only it would happen in God's time when, after forty years, God came to him with "'And now come, I will send you to Egypt.'"

In the first instance he sent himself and it was a disaster. But when God sent him, it was a success.

Do you you have a sense of mission or task that your life is to fulfill, but up till now nothing has fallen into place to bring it about? Let Moses' story be a caution sign to you and me not to force the issue by taking matters into our own hands. Rather, let's wait for God's "And now come, I will send you…"

PRAYER: Dear God I am often impatient wanting my life to fall into place in my own timing. Please help me to wait for Your initiative. Amen.

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Wait!

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Isaiah 40:18-31

TO CHEW ON: "But those who wait on the Lord

Shall renew their strength;

They shall mount up with wings like eagles;

They shall run and not be weary,

They shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31

If there's anything we moderns find hard to do, it's wait. Computers have made waiting — for some things at least — almost obsolete. Want to read a book? Buy it online and if you have an e-reader you can be reading it in minutes. Call or text your friends any time and from anywhere on your cell phone. Access your bank online 24/7.

The way we're accustomed to expect instant action on getting our desires satisfied may make Isaiah's advice to wait on the Lord harder than ever to follow. But it is something we need to do, no matter how jumpy and impatient technology has made us. For God has His own agenda, and is on His own timetable — something we ignore at our peril.

Isaiah has been talking about that agenda for Israel in Isaiah 40. He has predicted the coming of Messiah, and reminded the people of how big and all-powerful God is when compared with earth's nations. Here at the chapter's end, he calls the people back to trust in Him, concluding with verse 31 about how waiting on God renews strength and gives energy for the long haul.

Waiting in that way is something we need to do as we face life's evils, injustices and unresolved issues. The Bible tells us to wait on, or for, or in God because:

• He is our salvation (Psalm 25:5).

• He is our source of mercy (Psalm 123:2).

• He is our defense (Psalm 59:9).

• He is our revenge (Proverbs 20:22).

• Waiting for Him and His timing is the way we achieve our destiny (Psalm 37:9, 34).

• We are to wait for him alone (Psalm 62:5) and continually (Hosea 12:6).

A footnote in my Bible referring to Isaiah 40:27-31 says:

"A proper understanding of God's dealings in life comes only by knowing His perspective and ways. This calls for great patience (v. 31). Wait on the Lord means to go about the routines of life with a fervent, patient hope that He will consummate His rule in His time; He will deal with evil. Such an inner attitude gives one strength to mount up above the moment with vigor to go on. See Romans 8:18-30." - New Spirit Filled Life Bible, p. 919.

PRAYER: Dear God, please help me to resist the urge to act impatiently and take matters into my own hands. Instead help me to wait on, for, and in You to bring resolution to issues I face. Amen.

MORE: The tragedy of impatience

King Saul is someone who refused to wait. Read the tragic results of his impatience in 1 Samuel 13:1-14.


(From the archives)