Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart: wait, I say, on the Lord. Psalm 27:14
The ‘wait' always involves a time of testing. The place where our faith, our hope, our love is being challenged. Does the wait change us or do we impact the season of the waiting? Are we able to stay in a place of “counting it all joy” or do we vacillate dependent on what we see? Are we driven and tossed? Do we murmur and complain? Do we start well, but never finish?
I don’t know about you but when I find myself waiting on the Lord to move and I begin to waiver in my patience, I begin to look for things I can do in the natural to make things happen. A most dangerous trap to fall into because there is a God and it’s not me. He’s the performer. I’m the believer.
Are we capable of being like Abraham who had a promise and was able to look at the impossibility of the situation and still trust God to fulfill it? He did not waiver but grew strong in faith giving glory. The Psalmist wrote that in the wait God strengthens our heart so he encourages us to wait, and wait well. Waiting demands us to keep our eyes on Him.
The Psalmist wrote that in the wait we were to be of good courage. Courage speaks to condition of heart. It’s interesting to note that when the Lord spoke to Joshua he said, Be strong AND of good courage. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be dismayed for I am with you.
Moses met the Lord on the mountain top and has a moment about leading and says to the Lord, If you don’t go with me, don’t make me do this. The Lord’s response was, I’ll go with you. My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.
In other words, the very presence of the Lord works to instill strength of heart. Strength of heart always brings us into rest. Rest is simply abiding in the quiet confidence that God is at work. The very word wait from the Hebrew carries the idea of waiting confidently. Have you noticed that anxiety drives the need to do something besides wait?
Andrew Murray wrote in His book ‘Waiting on God’,
“Once a believer begins to see it [the absolute and unceasing dependence of continually waiting on God] and consents to it — that he must, by the Holy Spirit, each moment receive what God each moment works — waiting on God becomes his brightest hope and joy. As he begins to understand how God, as God, as infinite Love, delights to impart His own nature to his child as fully as He can — how God is not wary of keeping charge of His life and strength — he wonders why he ever thought that God could not be waited on all day. God unceasingly giving and working and His child unceasingly waiting and receiving this is the blessed life.”
The promise to those who wait upon the Lord from Isaiah was renewed strength, rising up, running without growing weary and walking without fainting.
Waiting is a good thing. The Lord is good to those that wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.