Date: November 8, 2018 ()

Bible Text: |

Series:

How long have you been waiting for God to answer one of your prayers? How long are you willing to wait? While you were waiting, did you see any changes occur in you? Most of us want God to answer our prayers as quickly as possible. We think, “God you have to do this now. If you don’t do it now, I don’t know what is going to happen. I have to know, You gotta move. You gotta, You gotta, You gotta.” God is not a heavenly bellboy. He is not just waiting for you to ding the bell and then He goes “Oh, okay.” It is not like that at all. God is running things. He does it His own way and on His own time schedule. When I had the jail ministry, I told a lady, “I am so tired of waiting for God to answer this one prayer. It just seems to be taking years.” Her response was, “Let me tell you something about God. He may not be early, but He is never late.” That comforted me. I laugh and tell my friends, “God answers your prayers at 11:59:59 so much of the time.” Why does He do that? One reason is to stretch your faith. If He answered quickly, does your faith have to grow? Does your faith have to stretch or do you have to stretch? Do you have to change?

There are ways that you change during the waiting season, during the waiting game. It is not a game to God. I do not mean it that way. One of the hardest things a Christian has to do is wait for an answer. You are sitting there thinking, “I see this. I see this. I see this. This is such a big problem it needs to be solved and it needs to be solved now.” What we do not understand is that sometimes God is working on someone on the other end and that has to fall in place. At one time, my husband and I wanted to move. We wanted to go where he could have his own veterinary practice. We were just learning how to pray. We prayed, and we prayed a lot, but it never happened. Months went by with nothing happening. Things fell through that we thought were the answer. It is really very hard when you think, “Maybe this is the answer.” But it was not. Then again, “Maybe this is the answer.” Then no. This happens again and again. We grew and grew in this time. We grew in the depth of our commitment to Jesus. There is something about having to wait on an answer. If you do not give up and you say you are going to wait on the answer, changes occur. Your commitment grows deeper and deeper. You find yourself even getting to the place that you will say, “Lord, I don’t care what Your answer is, I am going to do whatever You want. You just tell me and I will do.” Maybe, if God had answered sooner, you would have been thinking, “It has to be this, or it has to be this. That is all I will settle for.” God says, “Wait.” By waiting, you will finally say “Anything Lord.” Waiting, when practiced according to Biblical instruction, begins a peculiar communication with God; but, it is very dynamic and brings about great change. This is what we are going to study today.

I want you to think about and write down “What God Wants While You are Waiting”. I am going to give you some verses and I want you to think about the thing that you have waited on for the longest. We all have something that it seems we could go on forever before it is ever answered. What does God want you doing while you are waiting. From the Scriptures, what does God say that He wants? God wants you to wait expectantly. He wants you to wait in expectation, to know that your hope is in God and you expect Him to answer. Psalms 5:3 says, “In the morning Lord You hear my voice. In the morning, I lay my requests before You and wait in expectation.” God wants you to wait in hope. That is different from expectation. Psalms 33:20, “We wait and hope for the Lord. He is our help and our shield.” Listen carefully as we go through these versus. For those who have been waiting such a long time, one of these verses is going to leap out at you. You need to write it down and put it where you can see it all of the time to encourage you to keep waiting.

Psalms 37:34, “Wait for the Lord and keep His way.” That means to keep doing what you know is right. Keep doing it the way God wants it done. You know how he wants it done and what His Word says. Keep that going. Do not get off into rebellion or defiance. Do not get off into discouragement or hopelessness. Keep His way. Keep going; keep on keeping on. A saying that I say to myself is “I will until. . .” What do I mean by that? I will do it until it happens. Maybe things last longer than you want them to, but at least you are saying, “I am hanging in there until it happens. I don’t care how long it takes. I will until. . .”

In fact, Psalms 41 says, “I waited patiently for the Lord and He turned to me and heard my cry.” Why did he not turn in the beginning. I do not know. I had to wait patiently. Do you wait patiently or do you fidget and fume and say, “Come on Lord, I am waiting.” You do not treat God like that. Sometimes we have an attitude like that and waiting takes that out of you. It refines you. “I waited patiently for the Lord and He heard my cry.” It produces humility, doesn’t it. “I waited patiently and He heard my cry.” When you get frustrated, is that Godly? Is getting frustrated being a real Christian? It is being a real human and you are a real human.

Psalms 119:84 says, “How long must Your servant wait? When will you punish my persecutors?” How long, Lord, how long? That does not sound like a lot of faith or a lot of patience, but it does sound like the human condition. You are just being real with God. He already knows that you feel that way. Even when you are not talking, God knows every thought you have. So just be honest with Him. “Lord I am getting so frustrated. I am getting so tired. When are you going to answer this?” He might not say anything, but at least you got to say it to Him. You were honest with Him.

“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His Word, I put my hope,” Psalms 134. This is talking about your soul? How is your soul different from your spirit? Is it different? Absolutely it is. Your soul is not your physical body. Your soul is your mind, your will and your emotions. In waiting for the Lord, you have to make your mind that is racing to be calm and wait on the Lord. You have to make your emotions that are off the chart to calm down, say “God is going to do it.” Be peaceful and be trusting. Your will has to wait for the Lord. Many times you might think, “I am going to take matters into my own hands. I have waited long enough on God and He is not answering, so I have to figure out what to do.” That is what Saul did. Samuel came to him and said “Saul you disobeyed the Lord and today the Lord has taken the kingdom from you and given it to your servant.” It is a very serious thing not to wait on the Lord. While your mind is racing, while your emotions are up and down, and while your will wants to take off and do what you want to do, you must remember the verse says, “In His Word I put my hope.” Your soul wants to put your hope in something else and you are the master of your soul. Your spirit can watch over and correct and guard your soul. Your spirit man is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. It is where God moves through you and you can make your spirit man be stronger than your soul man or flesh man.

In Psalms 136, it says, “My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning.” A watchman on a wall watching for enemies or a watchman in a war that is on guard at night thinks, “I hope morning comes soon. How long until morning? Do I see anything that looks like morning? Is it time yet? How about now?” They are watching, wanting morning to come because there is safety when morning comes. It feels safer because they can see better. The Psalmist said, “My soul waits for the Lord more than that.” It means you are always looking, on guard, watching for any movement or sign of God. Elijah was watching for rain. There had been no rain and God had said there was going to be rain. Elijah said to his servant, “Go out and look to see if you see a cloud.” The servant came back and told him that he did not see anything. Elijah sent him out again, “Go out and look, do you see any sign of a cloud? Anything at all?” The servant came back again and told him no. Elijah did that seven times. The seventh time Elijah said, “Go and look. Do you see anything?” The servant came back and said, “Yes I saw a little something that looked like a cloud.” Elijah told him, “Then get ready because the rain is coming. The rain is on its way.” You have to be like that when you are waiting on God. There will finally be some tiny little indication that it is coming, you are to get ready. That is what God is talking about. Just like a watchman on a watch, in a war, is looking for any little sign. Get ready! There they are.

Isaiah 8:17 says, “I wait for the Lord who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob,” (which means us). “I will put my trust in Him.” Have you ever felt, “God are you listening? Do You care? Do You understand? Do You know? Are you hiding Your face from me, God? Why? Have I done something wrong? Have I made You angry? Am I doing something and don’t know it?” But, there is no answer at all. Why does God do that? He does it because He wants to stretch your faith. “Do you believe in Me when you don’t hear from Me, no matter how badly you think you need to? Do you wait? Do you put your hope in Me? Do you put your trust in Me?” A very important thing that God wants in a Christian is trust, unwavering trust. When God hides His face from you, remember it is only His face, it is not His body. As Isaiah said, “He is hiding His face” but not his body. Jesus said, “I will never leave you. I will never forsake you.” There have been a lot of times in my life when I have said, “Lord, are You listening? I can’t heard you. Why can’t I hear you?” I do not hear anything but I put my trust in Him. You need to put your trust in God. There is no one who will love you like the Lord. No one cares for your best like God does. You can trust Him with your most precious possessions and most important decisions. You can trust Him with everything. There is no one who wants to help you like God does. God wants to answer your prayers. Sometimes you have to say, “Lord is there something in my life that I need to change.” God will say, “Glad you asked. It took you a long time to ask, but I am glad you asked. Yes there is. Here is an area I want you to change.” You change it and then things start moving forward. Always ask God what is going on.

A verse you should always remember is Isaiah 64:4, “Since ancient times, no ear has heard, no eye has seen any God besides You, oh God, who acts on the behalf of those who wait for him.” Some of you are living in Muslim countries and you have only known the god of the Muslim religion. That has been a god that you could not please. You could not do enough. You thought he was harsh. Let me tell you about the true God, the God that loves you, the God that wants to help you and is waiting for you to cry out and say, “I believe Lord. I believe in Jesus. I receive Jesus. Come into my life God. Come and relieve and change me.” There are Muslims that have dreams and they will say, “I had a dream and Jesus appeared to me and said, ‘I am the One you are looking for,’ and I became a believer.” No eye has seen what God will do on behalf of those who wait for Him. What does waiting meaning in that situation? It means listening with a careful ear; listening very carefully, “What are you saying, God?” It is that kind of waiting.

Do you ever get the promise? Think about Hebrews 6:15, “After waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.” Abraham could not have children. He was an old man, and his wife was an old woman. They were way past childbearing age. God said, “I am going to give you a child.” They waited about 25 more years. God was waiting until there was no way they could have a child naturally. There was no way people could say it was an accident. Then God gave them a child. There are times when you are waiting that it is because God wants to get all the credit. He wants to show people how powerful He is and how much He is able to do things when there is no hope, no chance. But, God can do it. Abraham, after waiting patiently, received the promise.

In Lamentations 3:26 it says “It is good to wait quietly.” You might think it is not so good, but God says it is good to wait quietly. Maybe we want to talk about it to everyone, but God says, “Why don’t you not talk about it to anyone. Why don’t you just wait quietly and see what I do.” You think, “God are you ever going to do it Lord? I need to know. I am about to give up.” There is a verse in Habakkuk 2:3, “For the revelation awaits for an appointed time.” God has a time that it is going to happen. “It will speak at the end and it will not be false, though it linger, wait for it. It will certainly come and will not be overdue a single day.” However, there is a time that you have waited so long, so quietly, so patiently, kept your soul and stayed hopeful, stayed expectantly for so long that when God was ready to move, you were so used to waiting that you were still waiting. What does God have to say then? Acts 22:16, “What are you waiting for. Get up, be baptized. Wash your sins away. Call on his name.” There is a time when God says, “The waiting game is over. You have learned what you needed to learn. You allowed me to change you. Great things happened. My timing is now ready. Get up. Let’s go.” God begins to tell you where to go and what to do. In this particular verse, God said, “Get up, be baptized. Wash your sins away. Call on the name of the Lord.”

What does waiting teach us? God can answer without our help and without manipulation from us. Another thing we learn is, it is hard to get our will to die down. It is hard to get our time schedule to be God’s time schedule. Next, there can be a real struggle to believe that the Holy Spirit is going to come and help us. There can be a struggle to believe that it is His will to help us, and that God wants to answer us. The longer you wait, the more you think “God do You not want to help me?” The greatest thing we learn is that astonishing spiritual growth can take place. So often, the painful things we go through, the things that are not comfortable, that are painful and not easy, not good, are the very things that are required to cause spiritual growth to take place. Why is that? I do not really know. Do you think you can get big muscles if you do not go to the gym and work with heavy weights?

What can you gain by waiting? You can gain patience. I have heard people say, “Don’t pay for patience because you don’t know what you are going to have to go through to get patience.” My answer to that is, “Do you want patience? If you want patience, you have to go through what you have to go through to get it. If that means waiting on God, then you are going to have to wait.” Waiting can produce more love for God. How in the world can that happen, when you are having to wait and He is not answering the prayer? You have to get in the Bible and read about God. You see Him answering other people’s prayers. You think, “If He does it for them, He is going to do it for me because He is not a respecter of persons. He is going to come through.” The longer you wait, you will take just about any answer. Sometimes God’s answer is not what you want it to be but it is the best answer. You will also discover that you begin to love people around you more. You are not so caught up in it is all about me, me, me. Instead, you have time to look around and see people who need help. You can say, “Maybe I can help them while I am waiting. I am not doing anything else.” Waiting also increases your ability to hear His voice better. Haven’t you prayed, “God I would love to hear your voice better.” God says, “While you are waiting, I will teach you how.” You will learn through the experience. So much of the time, we want God to be like magic dust, “Oh God that is a good trait, I would like to have that.” It does not work like that. You have to go through things to get what you want. I have discovered in my personal life that waiting creates a greater willingness to obey the Lord. I want the answers and I pray, “Lord whatever you want me to do I will do. I don’t even care, just tell me.”

In the natural, there is a time period and a growth rate in a plant. Is that true in the spirit world, too? Is there a Bible verse that says that? Yes. There is a God-given rate of growth. Mark 4:28 says, “The earth produces crops by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.” You do not want to eat green apples because they make your stomach hurt. Remember Elijah when he sent his servant out to look for a cloud. He finally saw a little one and it was enough to let him know that God is going to answer this prayer. It is the same way with you. Mark 1:15 says, “The time promised by God has come at last. The kingdom of God is near. Repent of your sins and believe the good news.” People can pressure you to act too early. Do not let them do it. You wait on the Lord. The Lord will let you know, “Now. Get busy. I am ready for you to move now.” Do not let people pressure you. No matter how great the pressure is that they put on you. You will be glad you waited. You will be glad God had his time. You will want to wait. One time I prayed for tongues and I did not get it. God said, “It is premature.” I had to learn that the reason I had to wait was because He wanted me to really understand it and help people. Wait on the Lord.

QUIET TIME QUESTIONS

1. What are the reasons God waits to answer your prayers?
2. Which scripture helps you in your current situation while you are waiting for Him to answer one of your prayers?
3. What can you learn while waiting on God?
4. What are you able to gain while waiting on God?

Topics: