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I have been trying for a few months now to write a devotional based around waiting on the Lord. Anyone who knows me knows that this is something I am consistently being sharpened in. My natural inkling is towards progress and my heart has a bias towards action and I’ve believed the lie that waiting on the Lord is neither action nor progress.
In my uncertainty surrounding many situations in my life the consistent counsel that I get from scripture, family, and friends is to wait on the Lord, believe He is good, and that He has got my back.
After a particularly rough week, my wife and I were sitting on the couch discussing what was on our hearts at the time. I brought up my difficulty with seeing where my path is taking me and how I am really fighting to learn what it looks like to truly wait on the Lord.
Some time passed and I reached under our coffee table and picked up a devotional that’s been in our home for many years and served us mightily in busy seasons of life, Mornings and Evenings by Charles Spurgeon. I opened the devotional immediately to a page that had been heavily underlined, read over, and well loved. The passage of scripture on the page was Psalm 27:14: "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."
I believe that this excerpt from Spurgeon will be more helpful than anything I could have possibly written on the topic.
Psalm 27:14 – Wait For The Lord
It may seem an easy thing to wait, but it is one of the postures which a Christian soldier learns not without years of teaching. Marching and quick-marching are much easier to God's warriors than standing still. There are hours of perplexity when the most willing spirit, anxiously desirous to serve the Lord, knows not what part to take. Then what shall it do? Vex itself by despair? Fly back in cowardice, turn to the right hand in fear, or rush forward in presumption? No, but simply wait. Wait in prayer, however. Call upon God, and spread the case before him; tell him your difficulty, and plead his promise of help. In dilemmas between one duty and another, it is sweet to be humble as a child, and wait with simplicity of soul upon the Lord. It is sure to be well with us when we feel and know our own folly, and are heartily willing to be guided by the will of God. But wait in faith. Express your unstaggering confidence in him; for unfaithful, untrusting waiting, is but an insult to the Lord. Believe that if he keep you waiting even till midnight, he will still come at the right time; the vision will come and will not delay. Wait in quiet patience, not rebelling because things are difficult, but blessing your God for the privilege of affliction. Never grumble against the second cause, as the children of Israel did against Moses; never wish you could go back to the world again, but accept the circumstance as it is, and put it as it stands, simply and with your whole heart, without any selfish agenda, into the hand of your covenant God, saying, "Now, Lord, not my will, but Yours be done. I know not what to do; I am at the end of myself, but I will wait until you part the floods or drive back my enemies. I will wait, even if you test me many days, for my heart is fixed upon You alone, O God, and my spirit waits for You in the full conviction that You will still be my joy and my salvation, my refuge and my strong tower."
I want to call your attention to the four postures of waiting outlined by Spurgeon:
- Wait in prayer
- Wait with simplicity of the soul – like an expectant child
- Wait in faith
- Wait in quiet patience
God is good and He has your back. Waiting is a part of the masterful work He is doing in your life. Anchor into these truths today friends and find the peace that can only be found in Christ. We love you and are here for you.
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