Waiting for the Lord

Psalm 130:⁵ I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits,

and in his word I put my hope.

⁶ I wait for the Lord

more than watchmen wait for the morning,

more than watchmen wait for the morning.

Waiting....

It's a skill learned with much reluctance. We don't want to wait. We want what we want RIGHT NOW! But to wait, and more specifically, to wait for the Lord is an important disciple for every believer.

It means we have put our case, our request, our problem before God and we wait for his reply. It's as if the letter has been sent, the request made, but it takes a while for the reply to arrive. Every day we go to the mailbox hoping for a response. Every day we wait. "I wait for the Lord." There's a dependence here, a trust, an appeal to someone who can help in our time of need, but we wait.

We wait for his reply. The waiting is just as important as the reply itself. It means I don't try to do it myself. I'm not working to resolve my own situation. I'm waiting.....I'm waiting for God's response. It's a trust that demands patience. How long do I wait? What do I do while I wait? Am I being lazy by not doing something myself? How do I know when I should act and when I should wait?

Waiting is hard. Waiting on the Lord is even harder. It's the silence that makes it so difficult. While I wait, as least in my experience, I rarely hear word about the timing of the response. God doesn't e-mail me to let me know it's on the way. I just have to wait, to trust, to know that God is trustworthy.

Waiting for the Lord demands an upward focus, a trust in the Lord to accomplish what I have asked of him. Soon the answer comes and then what joy, but let me offer this- there is more joy to be realized in the waiting than we ever know. In that waiting our faith grows. We trust someone else to do what we cannot. In that waiting we grow and that's much more important than the answer of the moment.