Monday, April 16, 2007

The Challenge of Waiting II

(1) Waiting is a great revealer. When God's timing fits ours, our spiritual immaturity doesn't show. It's when His timetable conflicts with ours that our impatience surfaces. And His delay (as we see it), with its inevitable waiting, forces us to face the otherwise-hidden recesses of our selfish heart.

(2) Waiting is one of our Lord's best tools for getting our attention.
Only He could know how much we would ignore Him, take Him for granted, and fall into rank ingratitude did He not force us to wait upon Him. Our hearts are so easily distracted, our spiritual attention span so pitifully short, that the One who deserves our undivided often uses waiting to gain our gaze again.

(3) Waiting provides time for spiritual inventory. The command to "examine ourselves" (I Corinthians 11:28), applies to much more than only taking the Lord's Supper. As we wait on the Lord, we should be continually seeking to see if unconfessed sin in any form has defiled our conscience, and broken our fellowship with Him.

(4) Waiting gives proper perspective. Intellectually we know that we are to "set our mind on the things above, and not on the things that are on earth," "fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith," (Colossians 3:2; Hebrews 12:2). Yet, how easily we become immersed in daily circumstances & situations, becoming consumed with the demands made upon us. Suddenly, we are forced to wait. And as we give God our complete focus, His priorities become paramount. We again understand that that which is seen is temporal, while that which is unseen is eternal.

We learn that the price required to take God seriously is well worth the wait, both in time and for eternity.



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