strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord...

“Wait for the LORD;
   be strong and take heart
   and wait for the LORD.”

Psalm 27:14

   I knew I needed to write another blog post sooner or later. I spent all day yesterday trying to figure out what to write about. I thought about the summer ahead of me, about golf- how I love it or what my life would’ve been like if I played in college- and its awesomeness, about my dad’s lunchtime talks with me about world politics, about the blessings in my life I call my friends. I probably could write a lot about what each of those things have taught me. But as I was on the golf course, it finally hit me that pretty much everything going on in my life right now has to do with waiting on God. I’m waiting for my trip to Europe to get here, to study abroad next year, to move in with my awesome future roomies, to get better at guitar, to graduate, to have a future family, to get a job, to grow up. I’ve even decided to take a year off of dating and “talking to” guys for a year, which I’ve never done before. I wrote a contract. Basically, I’m learning how to surrender to God in waiting for Him. I thought I’d try to figure out how to talk my leader-type personality into taking the back seat, considering waiting on God is obviously something I need to know how to do. None of this is a revelation or anything, but just what I’ve been trying to focus on lately.

   The Bible is loaded with scripture about waiting on God. From what I’ve read, He is the God of providence, salvation, and blessings. We wait on Him for mercy, guidance, fulfillment of His promises and Word, and the coming of Christ. Waiting on Him is good, and He calls us to do it. It should be from the heart, with an earnest desire for His will to be done, with complete resignation, with undeniable hope and confidence, continual, every day, all day, and stronger in adversity. Waiting takes patience. Those who wait on God wait on Him only, are heard, are blessed, experience His goodness, should not be ashamed, have their strength renewed, inherit the earth, are saved, and rejoice for eternity. Waiting on Him was best exemplified by David, Hannah, Isaiah, Micah, Jacob, and Joseph. (Basically... I don’t know why people say God doesn’t speak. The Bible can answer any question if you just read it.)

   At some point, everyone waits. Our lives don’t come close to running on our own schedules, and God has a master plan that is far too great for any of us to even begin to comprehend, replicate, or improve. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Ecclesiastes 3:1-11:

“There is a time for everything, 

   and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,
   a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
   a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
   a time to mourn and a time to dance, 

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
   a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
   a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
   a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
   a time for war and a time for peace.

What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

   Our ability to wait on the Lord is dependent only on confidently expecting and focusing on who God is, on what God is doing, and on what God has done. We can only get ourselves to wait on Him if we have confidence in His character, wisdom, love, timing, and understanding of your situation and of the world. We have to know and trust in His principles, promises, purposes, and power. Waiting involves an expectation and anticipation of something special. Psalm 105 talks about what God has done and His promises of what He will do.

   In this verse, it’s like we are the watchmen that wait for the morning that always comes. Why would they question the sun rising?

“I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits,
   and in his word I put my hope. 

I wait for the Lord
   more than watchmen wait for the morning,
   more than watchmen wait for the morning.”

Psalm 130:5-6

   Our attitudes in waiting are based on our contentment with our portions and how we control our appetites. There is not a moment of my life that I don’t want something I don’t or can’t have. I want all of those things I mentioned above to go ahead and happen more and more every day, and sometimes it seems like time is slowing down. How do I handle stifling my earthly desires while I wait on God? How do I act?

   My friend Erin talked about contentment once. It’s like her forte in terms of Christian topics to give counsel on, and that’s saying a lot because she is super wise. She said people are discontent when they think, “if I only had this, I’d be happier,” or “if this were different, everything would be better.” Erin explained that we are called to contentment in our circumstances (1 Timothy 6:15), identities (Psalm 139:13-16), roles (Ephesians 2:8-10), and relationships (Ephesians 4:3), and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these are also the things we wait on God to change. She said that a faulty focus is the root of discontentment, and that looks like greed and anxiety in daily life. According to Erin (that should be the name of an advice column), there are five practical ways to be content:

1. Never complain about anything.
2. Never picture yourself in any other circumstances or anywhere else.
3. Never compare your portion with someone else’s.
4. Never allow yourself to regret.
5. Never dwell on tomorrow.

“LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;

   you have made my lot secure.”

Psalm 16:5

“Be still before the LORD
   and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when people succeed in their ways,
   when they carry out their wicked schemes.”

Psalm 37:7

   At Passion last year, Andy Stanley (love him) spoke on appetites. The main clause of his sermon was that our appetites with either rule us, or we will rule them. He mentioned these main points:

• God created appetites, sin distorted them. They aren’t bad, but broken.
• Our appetites are never ever ever fully satisfied.
• Our appetites always whisper “now” and never “later.”
• Our responses to our appetites determine if we fulfill God’s will.

   The scripture Andy focused on was in Genesis 25, a story of Jacob and Esau. Just as Esau sold Jacob his birthright for a bowl of stew, we always give up our potential for our addictions. Esau later despised the stew and Jacob because he gave up his birthright. This is just like how if we don’t control our appetites, the consequences will make us bitter towards God’s will. We are called to “refrain and reframe.” I think this applies to waiting on God because my appetites are always what ruin my attempts to follow His will. I know that God calls me to listen for His calling, but instead I tend to settle for the immediate, submitting to my appetite for control, job completion, and lack of conflict. I have appetites for success, approval, progress, love, and responsibility, too, and my tendency to try and figure those things out by myself keeps me from waiting to see what God has in store for me.

“But they soon forgot what he had done
   and did not wait for his plan to unfold. 

In the desert they gave in to their craving;
   in the wilderness they put God to the test.
So he gave them what they asked for,
   but sent a wasting disease among them.”

Psalm 106:13-15

   The actions we take while we are waiting on God involve humbly seeking His will, faithfully disregarding our will, and openly listening to what He has to say. We have to be careful in waiting not to become lazy or controlling, bitter or complacent, distracted or selfish. Waiting on God is just what it says. We aren’t called to just wait for things to get better for our own sake or to take the easy way out by not worrying about anything- we are called to wait on Him when He tells us we need to (which is pretty much always), and to say, “God, this time is something important to me, but I’m going to let you take control of it and trust you with its outcome as I wholeheartedly seek You during it.”

“I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my portion;
   therefore I will wait for him.’

The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
   to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
   for the salvation of the LORD.”

Lamentations 3:24-25

   God rewards those who love Him, and does big things for the people who do big things for HIm. I think it’s super exciting to think about the consequences of waiting for God. In the midst of this season of waiting on so many things in my life, Andy Stanley is doing a message called “The New Rules for Love, Sex, and Dating.” It is amazing to me that the day after I wrote that contract I mentioned earlier, Andy challenged the singles in the entire church to take a year off of dating. (Again, “coincidence is evidence of God’s providence.”) He later read a letter to the audience that was written to him by a girl who took that challenge when he gave it years ago. I was really moved by the faithfulness God showed her when she showed it to Him. Those who wait on the Lord become strong, and waiting isn’t so bad when you think about how you’re putting your life into the hands of a controller Who loves you more than even you ever could.

“But now, Lord, what do I look for?
   My hope is in you.”

Psalm 39:7

“However, as it is written:

   ‘What no eye has seen,
   what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived’
   the things God has prepared for those who love him.”

1 Corinthians 2:9

“Do you not know?
   Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
   the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
   and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
   and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
   and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
   will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
   they will run and not grow weary,
   they will walk and not be faint.”

Isaiah 40:28-31

Patience with God is hope.