Waiting

"Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long...May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you." -Psalm 25:5,21



Waiting...





can...







be...







painstaking.



I like immediate results, quick answers and speedy resolutions. I want to pray, then see God answer without delay. I wanted God to work according to my timetable. So, when I come to a text like the one quoted above, my impatience is tested and my need for repentence is made clear. I am not the sovereign God of the universe!

In his book When I Don't Desire God, John Piper writes,

We are like farmers. They plow the field and plant the seed and cut away weeds and scare away crows, but they do not make the crop grow. God does. He sends rain and sunshine and brings to maturity the hidden life of the seed. We have our part. But it is not coercive or controlling. And there will be times when the crops fail. Even then God has his ways of feeding the farmer and bringing him through a lean season.

We must learn to wait for the Lord. King David gave us an example of this in Psalm 40...Here is a man after God's own heart (1 Sam.13:14), who spent time in the 'pit of destruction and in the 'miry bog'--where there was no song in his mouth. How long was he there? We are not told. What matters is what he did there. He waited for the Lord. He could not make the Lord come. He could wait and hope and trust that he would come. And he did come. He put David's feet on a rock and put a new song in his mouth.

David waited on the Lord because he knew that "all the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies" (v.10). David waited. And I will wait, hope and trust too.