The Secret of Waiting

T

he secret place is a time machine, transporting us from our time zone to His. Here we step into the eternal and begin to view all of life from the perspective of the Age-

less One who is without beginning or ending of days. From this vantage, waiting on God takes on an entirely different hue.

The closer you get to God, the more you realize He’s in no hurry. There is no frenetic hurrying in heaven, only calculated purpose. “Whoever believes will not act hastily” (Isaiah 28:16). Those who step into God’s time zone will not allow urgent matters to press them into acting too quickly and getting ahead of God.

Lord, help me to write about the powerful secret of waiting on You!

Many of us approach our secret place with a checklist of activi- ties, and we “check them off” mentally once they’re completed:

Ö Confession of sins

Ö Worship, praise, thanksgiving

Ö Bible Reading

Ö Meditation

Ö Intercession

Ö Journaling

The Secret of Waiting

Then, once we’ve completed everything on our list, our time in the secret place is finished. But is it really finished? There is yet another element to be included—waiting on God.

One of the best descriptions of waiting on God is found in Psalm 123:2, “Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, until He has mercy on us.” To wait on God is to stare at His hand. We stare at His hand for two primary reasons: to serve and minister to Him in whatever way His hand might signal us to fulfill; and to wait until He moves His mighty hand on our behalf. Waiting on God is not watching television until God chooses to move; waiting on God is attentively gazing upon Him with undistracted focus until He has mercy on us. And until He acts, we just wait on Him and love Him. I would say it this way: While waiting for God, wait on God.

Someone once said, “We should seek His face and not His hand.” I disagree. We seek His face and His hand. We seek the intimacy of His face, but we also seek the power of His hand. It’s not either/or; it’s both/and. We so long for the release of His power that we gaze with rapt attention upon Him until He moves on our behalf.

Waiting on God may be the most difficult of all the spiritual disciplines, and perhaps that’s the reason so few truly practice it. Just sitting in His presence and gazing…it can be agonizing to us who have become accustomed to being bombarded with data and stimuli. We lack the attention span to wait on God. But He knows that, so in His kindness He designs scenarios that will help us learn how to wait on Him. Once we press through and cross the boredom threshold, we open to the joys and adventures of waiting on God.

To wait on God successfully, we must come to derive more fulfillment by being with Him than by working for Him. When being with Him fully satisfies us, we can wait for as long as nec- essary—just as long as He stays with us. This is why Jesus could wait to minister until He was thirty. He was totally satisfied in His relationship with His Father, so He was willing to wait even though He was ready to minister long before age thirty. I think

Secrets of the Secret Place

Jesus could have just as easily waited until He was ninety to begin His ministry because the presence and affection of His Father made Him complete.

Some of the greatest assurances of Scripture are offered to those who wait on God.

For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen any God besides You, who acts for the one who waits for Him (Isaiah 64:4).

Therefore the LORD will wait, that He may be gracious to you; and therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him (Isaiah 30:18).

Regarding the latter verse, I have heard some teach, “You’re waiting for God, but God’s waiting for you!” While that may be true in some instances, it is not the truth of Isaiah 30:18. When it says, “The Lord will wait,” it doesn’t mean that God is waiting for you to do something; it means that God is strategically delaying His miraculous visitation because He has greater things in store for you than you’ve even asked for. But to give you the fullness of what He has planned for your life, He will use the season of wait- ing to prepare you as a vessel, and also to prepare circumstances around your life so that you will be able to step forward into the proper sphere when His release comes to you. He’s waiting so that He can crown you with an even greater blessing.

Many today commonly embrace the idiom, “It is insanity to keep doing what you’ve always done and expect different results.” While that statement may be true in some arenas, it is not true when it comes to waiting on God. Waiting on God is so powerful that the enemy will do everything in His power to dissuade you from maintaining your watch. He will tell you that you’re insane to keep waiting on God in the midst of your pressing circumstances. He’ll tell you that waiting on God is changing nothing. But those who know the ways of God are aware of Joseph’s testimony: Even though you may wait on God for many years, there is a day coming

The Secret of Waiting

when God will change everything in a moment of time! He may take seemingly forever to get around to it, but once God moves, He can change everything in a day.

One of the greatest incentives of waiting on God is found in Psalm 104:4, “Who makes...His ministers a flame of fire.” The original word for “ministers” (Hebrew, sharat) speaks of someone who waits on, who serves, ministers, attends. So sharat hints of intimacy, referring to those servants who serve in closest proxim- ity to the king. And here’s what God does with His ministers who wait on Him: He makes them a flame of fire! He ignites them with the passions of His heart and enflames them with zeal for His face and for His kingdom.

God’s flaming zeal empowers us to wait on Him. Some of God’s most powerful angels, who burn with zeal for Him, are de- scribed in the book of Revelation as standing at their post—where they’ve been standing and waiting for centuries—until the time when God signals their release (Revelation 8:2; 19:17). They are enflamed with zeal so they can wait. God is setting you ablaze with His fiery passions in this hour in order that you might wait upon Him in holy passion and fiery ecstasy.

Take to heart the counsel of King David who, after years of proving this truth in his own life, left a legacy of wisdom for all men and women to follow. Receive it from a man who knew: “Wait on the LORD; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the LORD!” (Psalm 27:14).

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Дата добавления: 2015-10-23