I regularly talk to people that have given their hearts to God, but, so many times want to give up too easily. Why do they do that? Because things did not happen to them when, and how théy thought it will happen. Not at théir time and not like théy wanted it to happen to them. God again, wants us to learn to wait for Him, so that He can show us what HIS WILL is for our lives in HIS TIME. Let’s have a look at Isaiah 30:18 with regards to this:
“And therefore will the LORD wait, that He may be gracious unto you, and therefore will He be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgement: blessed are all they that wait for Him”.
This is very clear that we have to learn to WAIT for God. We always want things to happen in oúr time (naturally, as quick as possible). We always want to tell God: “Lord I want some patience and I want it NOW!”. This is however, not the way it works with God. He wants us to learn to persist, He wants us to learn to be patient, and He wants us to learn to believe in Him and not in our own abilities. What does the Bible verse that we quoted above say? God waits to be merciful unto us and that we are “blessed” if we wait for Him. In other words, He WAITS for us, to learn to wait for HIM! And when we learn to wait for Him, we are blessed! Do you know that the Bible is full of this refrain: “Wait for God, wait for God, wait, wait, wait…?” The Hebrew word for “wait” is: “qavah”, which means “to collect”or “to expect”or “to be interwoven into”. In other words, we must expect God in our lives in such a way, and genuinely take him in, so that we will be totally “interwoven” with Him. Only then, will we and can we completely obey His orders.
This is how the prophet Micah declared it in Micah 7:7:
“Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me”
It can only be wonderful to be so “interwoven” with the living, true, Almighty God. Just think what He will and can teach us when we are interwoven with Him! But then we must OBEY His word. We must literally take up His word and start DOING what He says about this. We must learn to wait so that He can show us what His goal is with our lives, not what WE want for our lives.
But, if we just look around us, what does “the father of lies”, satan, do with the world? EVERYTHING becomes quicker/faster – life, technology (faster cars, faster computers, faster cellphones etc.), our lifestyle, our work programmes, fast foods, and more. Everything gets developed and established to make things happen QUICKER. I do not say that this is a bad thing, on the contrary. The problem that arises from this is that, because we get used to things happening so much quicker, we forget what it means to really WAIT. We get frustrated when we have to stand in a queue; it is so much quicker when doing my shopping via the internet. We get frustrated when the red light does not change to green quick enough and therefore there are so many accidents at robots where cars “jump” the light. We get frustrated when the preacher dares to preach longer than the 1 hour that he is “allowed” to preach. (We forget that on occasions Jesus preached for days on end without anyone complaining. Yes, but Tiaan that was in Jesus’ time when the people did not have as much to do like we have to do in today’s life. Indeed, dear friend, but they had something much better – a personal relationship with the living Jesus Christ! This is also meant for us. If we will only thirst after HIM and stop looking at the structure, the church, the program and the time schedule).
And what does God say? Like in the beginning He stíll wants for us to learn to wait for Him and persist in our faith. We do not know how to do that anymore. That is why we also get frustrated with God because He does not let things happen around us as quickly as we want for Him to make it happen. And, right there lies satan’s weapon, which he uses to damage the relationship between us and God.
No, we have to learn to REALLY wait for God, the way that He expects us to wait. Only then, can He bless us the way He wants to bless us. But, we are our own biggest enemy and the restriction to our own blessings.
tiaan gildenhuys