Advent 2021: Wait On The Lord
I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. - Psalm 130:5-6
We are commanded over forty times in the Scriptures to “wait on the Lord.” (See the list at the bottom.) This is a great distinction of the Living God from every other God; He acts on behalf of those who wait for Him. (Is 64:4)
We are walking on a linear line from minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, year to year. God works in cycles and seasons outside of our linear timeline. He surrounds all of time itself and brings things into view at the “right time” or in “due season.” Things He has already declared and finished are being manifested on our linear timeline. The Bible calls this kairos. The everlasting God works in kairos; we live in chronos. A.W. Tozer explains it this way, “Time is known to us by a succession of events. It is the way we account for consecutive changes in the universe. Changes take place not all at once but in succession, one after the other, and it is the relation of after to before that gives us our idea of time. We wait for the sun to move from east to west or for the hour hand to move around the face of the clock, but God is not compelled so to wait. For Him everything that will happen has already happened.”
When we wait on the Lord, we are not passively coasting through life, sitting in a spiritual La-Z-Boy. The picture of waiting in the Bible is poised for action, leaning forward, anticipating when His divine timing (kairos) will intersect our chronos, and waiting for instruction. Like the watchmen of old, we are peering out onto the horizon, eagerly anticipating that first glint of daybreak so that we may run. It is not a shrinking back in fear (fear can often mask itself as wisdom); it is not a pity party. It is a surrendered will to the God who orders our steps, lights our path, and knows our way. As the Psalmist writes, “My soul waits.” I do not let my thoughts, affections, decisions, or desires rush ahead of what God has spoken. When we choose to wait on the Lord, we abandon all our own ideas about how the world should work and when things should happen. When we wait on the Lord, we are leaning into His timing and His wisdom and divorcing the “I want what I want - how I want it - when I want it” spirit. The Lord calls to us saying “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways… for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Is 55:8-9) The Father wants us to hear and understand heavens’ thoughts, and see supernatural ways. There are divine solutions, divine provisions, and divine assignments that the Lord wants to bring to us, but we rush by them, holding fast to our ideas about how the world should work, what the outcome should be, and when it should happen. When we do that we are in danger of producing an “Ishmael” where God wanted to bring forth an “Isaac.” When we try to manufacture God’s promises, we become responsible to manage the outcome. When we wait on the Lord and obey, He is responsible for the outcome.
We would save ourselves much time and heartache if we simply waited on the Lord, and obeyed His word. As King Jehoshaphat declared, “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”
“‘From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God’ said Moses in the Spirit. ‘From the vanishing point to the vanishing point’ would be another way to say it quite in keeping with the words as Moses used them. The mind looks backward in time till the dim past vanishes, then turns and looks into the future till thought and imagination collapses from exhaustion: and God is at both points, unaffected by either…. That God appears at time’s beginning is not too difficult to comprehend, but that He appears at the beginning and end of time simultaneously is not so easy to grasp; yet it is true.” – A.W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy
Prayer:
Father, I come to you. You are the beginning and the end. You are the first and the last. You surround all things and uphold them by your power. My life is in Your hands, my times are in Your hands, my heart is in Your hands. You are big and I am small. Your thoughts are higher than mine. Your ways are higher than mine. Your timing is better than mine. Your perspective is clearer than mine. So, I surrender to You today, my thoughts, my timing, my ways, my desires, and my perspective. Jesus, I relinquish control of every outcome and I put my trust in You. I will stop trying to manufacture, manipulate and move things forward. I choose instead to wait on You. I know You are working marvelous things that I cannot see or perceive right now. I thank you that You are my Shepherd who leads me perfectly, who is acting on my behalf even when I cannot see it. Precious Holy Spirit, give me the grace to wait on the Lord, keep me from rushing ahead. Help me to think thoughts that are not my thoughts and see ways that are not my ways. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
*(Psalm 25:4-9, 25:21, 27:14, 31:24, 33:20, 37:7-9, 37:34, 40:1-2, 46:10, 62:5, 69:13, 119:81; Prov 20:22; Is 8:17, 25:9, 30:18, 40:31, 64:4; Hab 2:3; Micah 7:7: Hosea 12:6; Zeph 3:8; Luke 2:25; Acts 1:4; Gal 5:5, 6:9; Phil 3:20, 4:6; Col 1:11; 1 Thess 1:10; 1 Cor 1:7; Titus 2:13; ; Jam 1:12, 5:7-8; 2 Pt 3:9; Jude 1:21)
