Why Wait?

Yesterday I shared the discovery I made about one of the greatest sources of stress for me; and that is Satan’s whispering lies, and the spirit of fear that was causing my anxiety attacks.  What we hear and believe can and will have a powerful effect on our lives, especially if we are believers in Jesus and His Word, the Bible.  And our greatest weapon against Satan’s arsenal of subtle lies is the Word itself. 

2 Cor. 10:4  (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)

2 Cor. 10:5  Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;  KJV 

And the NIV translation reads: 

2 Cor. 10:4  The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

2 Cor. 10:5  We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.  

And so today I’d like to talk about patience and the importance of waiting.  One of the most recurring themes in my Christian walk has been to learn dependence on the Holy Spirit.  By nature, I am independent and I like to do things my own way, so learning to depend on someone else, especially the Holy Spirit, is a big challenge for me.  And what goes along with independence is impatience!  I want to rush ahead, but God wants me to wait.  And yet, I’ve discovered that His best work is often done over many long periods of waiting.  And it’s funny, but God’s ways, I find are extremely difficult to learn because they are so opposite to the worlds.  For one thing, nobody today really wants to wait for things, so it’s no wonder we’re all so stressed out. One small example is the speed of your computer or cell phone – mine is very very fast, so unless it’s doing a background virus check which slows it down a little, I have instant access to everything!  And this can be good except that it sets up an expectation that everything should be at my fingertips, and so I become even more impatient.   

In thinking about learning patience and to wait on God, I am reminded of a passage of Scripture found in Isaiah: 

Isa 40:28  Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

Isa 40:29  He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

Isa 40:30  Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

Isa 40:31  But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. KJV 

I love the imagery here.  Have you ever wondered why the bird mentioned is an eagle?  I thinking it’s because they are often found in some of the highest places in the world – the mountains.  The higher you are, the better you can soar!  In the above paragraph, I talked about the difficulty of learning to depend on the Holy Spirit.  If I am strong and have all the answers, I don’t really need to depend on God, do I?  But God doesn’t work that way in our lives.  There is always going to be a deficiency somewhere so that we have to depend on Him.  It might be money we need, or a job, a place to live, or healing for our bodies (and in some countries food to eat to survive!).  In my case it was relief and healing for anxiety attacks and other stress-related problems.  But underlying it all, I have found that God’s desire for me is to spend time with Him and learn about Him.  He will teach us His ways if we spend time with Him, be quiet and listen.  I didn’t discover the source of my anxiety until many years later.  Why?  I believe it was because God wanted me to spend the time with Him and learn of Him and from Him.  People today don’t want to wait.  We have too much to do and too many places to go.  Years ago, people got around by horse and cutter, or horse and carriage (depending on how rich they were).  Horses were rarely in a hurry, so imagine the time it gave people to talk and enjoy all the nature around them.  People had time to think clearly.  But today, when you go for a drive, the cars go so fast and the airplanes are super fast, you hardly have time to think about anything, because the next thing you know, you’re there!  And I won’t even mention the distractions of our high-tech society and all the texting going on. That’s an entirely different blog.

And another thing is that independence and impatience is not just a personal issue.  But it seems to happen all the time in some of the local churches.  Just take a look at the Sunday bulletin and the extended schedule for the events of the day or the week!  Sometimes there is so much going on in the church that the bulletin can keep you entertained for the entire duration of the service!  Sometimes I see more activities for the Body of Believers than I see true worship and prayer in the house of God.  It wouldn’t even be so bad if some of the activities were ministry-related, directed to the lost, and to all those who do not personally know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  Yet, even churches that have a tremendous outreach to their own community can become too busy and miss spending the important time in prayer and worship to the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ (see Col. 1:18).  And that’s just the thing – Jesus is the Head of the Church.  It isn’t the pastor or the priest or the Pope.  Jesus is the Head of the Church!  He’s the One with the ultimate authority.  So sometimes I think we fail and churches fail because we haven’t learned to depend on Jesus simply because we’ve been impatient and too self-directed to sit still long enough to hear what He has to say. 

I have come to believe that our bodies and minds, because we are made out of dust, cannot withstand the torture we sometimes put it through.  We were never meant to carry the heavy burdens we carry.  Today we may be worried about our loved ones, our health, our jobs, our lack of financial resources and any number of other things that come in and crowd into our lives.  It’s no wonder we suffer with anxiety and stress!  I know that I have so many things to do that I can’t begin to keep up with it all.  So I am constantly trying to shave back a little here and a little there.  And sometimes it just gets to be too much, so I have to take a mini vacation.  Also, I know there are people that avoid staying at home too much because there’s always just too much to do!  So they leave their housework, and their other duties (perhaps even catching up on email or Facebook messages), and go out.  They’re out all the time!  They work outside of the home, eat out, and then go out some place after that.  They’re often running away from their own self-imposed schedule, or if they’re single, perhaps they’re running away from feeling lonely.  I’ve done that and I can certainly understand it, but when do they get the quiet time needed to gain strength for the next day?  This brings me to a new topic, which I’ll begin in the next blog.

Thank you for reading and may God Bless You and fill you with His strength as you learn to wait on Him.