Wait on the Lord

 

As you wait on God, be mindful of the written Word of God, and of His spoken word revealed to you in time past: "I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope." (Psalm 130:5) This will be your protection from the deceit of the enemy: "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." (Eph 6:17)

   

 Wait for the LORD and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you will see it. (Psalm37:34)

Can you honestly say when the rent is past due or you have no income, that you can and will wait on the Lord?  If your spouse said they want a divorce, would you go to God and wait for him?

      

Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.  (Psalms 27:14)

To wait on the Lord is to stop all activity, quiet yourself, and focus your attention on Him.

One can see this definition by the context of the word wait. Consider John 5:3:

J"In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water." Imagine the painful, desperate, sickly crowd, longing for healing. They stare breathlessly down into the pool of Bethesda, scanning its smooth quiet surface, straining, focused, waiting for the angelic disturbance. It gives the idea of undistracted focus, total concentration, undivided attention, quiet enduring patience.

When one waits on the Lord one looks intently for communication from Him: "Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors." Proverbs 8:34. Position yourself in spirit so that you can hear God's communication to you. Sanctify yourself, get into His courts, turn from the din and clamor of the world, submerge in His holy presence, and then… wait.

One of the important exhortations of the Bible is the call to “wait on the Lord.” Even though God promises special blessing for waiting, waiting is one of the most difficult exhortations of Scripture. Why is it so hard? Because, as a part of fallen humanity, we are so prone to take matters into our own hands, to follow our own schemes. Yet, over and over again we are told in Scripture “wait on the Lord.”

We don’t like to wait and when we think of waiting we are apt to respond with the pun, “Wait? That’s what made the bridge collapse!” Of course, that’s weight, not wait. But then these two words, weight and wait are not always unrelated because one of our needs in waiting on the Lord is the need to cast the weightyburdens of life on Him.

• Maybe you are in a job situation that’s really tough to endure and you are waiting and hoping that conditions will change for the better.
• Maybe you are without a job and waiting for news on an application.
• Maybe you are ill (or have a loved one who is) and waiting for your health to improve.
• Maybe you are on a diet and waiting for your weight to drop a few pounds.
• A single person may be waiting for Mr. or Miss Right.
• Or maybe you are waiting for your spouse or child to become interested in spiritual things.

The simple fact is, in spite of our modern age and our dislike for waiting, life is full of waiting. And one of the most challenging exhortations of Scripture is “Wait.” But waiting, despite our impatience and our dislike for it, is a vital element in life. Indeed, waiting has a number of benefits that we will discuss in this study.