Courageous Waiting

Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! – Psalm 27:14

+

When the Bible discusses a topic once, it’s wise to pay attention. When the Bible goes to great lengths to continue to address a topic over and over again, it’s wise to consider it with the utmost seriousness.

The word ‘wait’ appears throughout the Bible more than 100 times. And yet, how many of us have ever heard a single sermon on the subject or spent a single Bible study session on it?

Waiting seems to be one of the great disciplines of the faith, given how often it is discussed throughout Scripture. And while our society certainly seems to have a particular kind of resistance to the idea (“Go out and get what you want!”; “Carpe diem! Seize the day!”; “Create your own opportunities!”), its prevalence within the Bible suggests that it is a universal problem and not just a modern Western one.

The act of waiting on God – for deliverance, for realization of hope, and ultimately, for the return of Christ and our final glorification – is called courageous in Psalm 27. ‘Courage’ and ‘waiting’ are not two things we tend to associate with one another. In our minds, courageous people tend to be ones that go out, take the world by the horns, wrestle it into submission and get what they want out of it. But the acknowledgment of God’s sovereign power and control over every aspect of our lives is a bold act of faith that stands in opposition to humanity’s natural tendency to seize our autonomy to try to become the masters of our own universe.

Waiting on the Lord requires acknowledging that you may not get what you want. It is a release of control and an admission that we don’t know what is best for us in our lives. It can be downright terrifying because of the amount of faith it requires. But to wait is to actively trust the God of all things with the circumstances of your life and the future that you cannot see.

In I Samuel 1, Samuel’s mother Hannah pours out her anxiety and distress to the Lord over her barrenness and desire for a child. In her prayers, she promises that if God will provide her with a son, she will “give him to the Lord all the days of his life.” And then, after she has prayed but before she has received anything, we are told that, “her face was no longer sad.”

When it comes to waiting for things, let us consider these two applications: first, are we making sure that what we’re waiting for is something we are willing to dedicate to the glory of God? Proverbs 16:3 says, “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.” But the verse immediately before it tell us, “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit.” We should be willing to commit all of our dreams, desires, and work to the God who can give them to us, but we must also trust Him to correct our wicked hearts so that our motives coincide properly with our prayers.

And secondly, we must find rest and contentment in the act of prayerful waiting itself, whether or not we ever receive from Him what we’re asking for. We will not find that contentment unless we acknowledge that God is the only one who can actually provide what we are seeking (James 1:17) and that He knows better than we do what is actually good for us (Matthew 6:8, 7:9-11; Romans 8:27-28).

What are the things you are waiting for? Have you approached God with a posture that acknowledges His sovereign power, His ultimate goodness, and your need for both His grace and wisdom in whether or not to provide them to you? Are you waiting on Him or seeking for ways to control the circumstances of your own life?

Take courage, and wait.

+

[D]o not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:6-7