I waited patiently for the Lord…

Pastor Richard Baker
Trinity United Methodist Church

(5/1) … He turned to me and heard my cry. (Psalm 40)

We just experienced the season of Lent. It was a time to prepare our hearts for God’s greatest work. God is preparing our hearts for eternity, and Lent is a season of waiting. We started our wait six weeks earlier and were rewarded on Easter morning as we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There were highs and lows along the way but God equipped us for what was coming.

What are we to do when we go to God and are told to wait? Most folks don’t like waiting. We’ve become "instant" people. Several years ago, the TV show "Sixty Minutes" brought together a group of young people and asked them to experience things that were in use when we were growing up. The first was a rotary dial phone. First, they were amazed that a phone could be stuck to a wall. But then they expressed frustration in how long it took for the dial to go around. After that, they were shown an old fashion mechanical can opener. Again, opening cans seemed out of place to them, but using some hand-held device to open it by piercing the can and then cranking a handle around it was unheard of.

The same impatience they showed with those old devices is the same impatience we express when we go to the Lord and don’t get an immediate answer. We accuse God of not answering our prayers but that is both untrue and unfair. God answers every prayer immediately, but it’s the answers we find fault with. God answers all our prayers with a yes, or no, or telling us to wait. I was given an illustration of that with a TV show. A man was talking to a child and he asked him if he ever prayed to God for something. The boy said he asked God for a model train set. The man asked if he had received the train and the boy said no. The man asked if he was disappointed that God did not answer his prayer. The boy said God did answer his prayer; God just said no. Sometimes being told to wait seems even more unbearable than being told no.

I was talking to a good friend recently who wanted to add to the conversation saying, we are to remain busy while we wait, meaning that waiting on God is an action. An action means not to remain idle. A monk, named Brother Lawrence, wrote a book entitled, "The Practice of the Presence of God." He wrote about his early frustration with monastic life. He found himself complaining out loud about his situation. A fellow monk told him he could find happiness by doing every chore, no matter how mundane by seeing it as a service to God. Taking out the trash or washing dishes can be a service to God. My friend said she has some of her best conversations with God while she’s doing the dishes. She said that God often reveals God’s self to us in the mundane.

When Jesus ascended into heaven, he left His disciples with a command. "Do not leave Jerusalem but wait for the gift My Father has promised, which you heard me speak about." (Acts 1: 4) The disciples were being equipped by God to be God’s messengers to the world. They were to prepare themselves for the "gift" Jesus spoke of. That gift was the Holy Spirit, the infilling of God’s presence in their lives. They needed to prepare themselves. They needed to get rid of any immorality in their lives. To be God’s witnesses meant to be "an Ambassador for Christ." (2nd Corinthians 5: 29) To be that they needed to devote themselves to prayer and study. It didn’t mean sitting around or even returning to their old livelihoods as fishermen. That way of life was meant to be left behind, and for God to use us, we must be willing to leave our old ways behind.

How do we reconcile that to Brother Lawrence’s words? Brother Lawrence was serving God in the way God had instructed him, while the disciples were waiting for clearer instructions. But, like the disciples, as soon as we receive our instructions, after our period of waiting and discernment, we act on those instructions. We don’t go off in a different direction or return to our old way of life, like the disciples, no matter how comfortable it may seem.

Depending on which translation you use, you can read in Isaiah 40, "Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint." God is telling us that there is a reward for patiently waiting for God to reveal God’s self.

If God speaks to you while you are washing dishes, you are to act as the disciples did when they first met Jesus. They immediately left everything behind to follow Jesus. When God calls you to action, you leave those dishes behind. But until God calls, keep doing the dishes or whatever task God puts before you. As Brother Lawrence illustrated, we find God’s presence in the work God sets before us.

Peter tells us in his second Epistle letter that "God is patient with you." (2nd Peter 3: 9) How can God be patient with such a group of unruly people? It’s because God looks at the long game. God is clear on what God’s game plan is. I heard a football analogy, that said, "How do you move the football down the field? One yard at a time. The players want that touchdown, but it requires them to patiently work the ball down the field. Reading that entire passage from Peter helps. " But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." If God can be patient, so can we! How? By keeping our eye on the goal line. By trusting in God. We do that by emulating Paul. He wasn’t always patient. He often plowed into God’s work, but God taught him and at the end of his life he wrote, "But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead. I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3: 14b- 15)

There was a fifty-day period between Christ’s resurrection and the day we call Pentecost, the day the disciples went to work. The Bible says that Jesus used that time to teach and equip His followers. There were times when He was absent and the temptation to return to their old way of living came back. It’s at the end of John’s gospel, that the disciples decided to go fishing, and Jesus appeared to them on the shoreline with a reminder of what they were now tasked with doing? His appearance was a gentle reminder to remember who they were and their new way of life. Do you find yourself in that period of waiting? Ask yourself: How and why is God preparing you? What task is before you? What gift might be God preparing for you as you wait? Wait patiently and be ready to be amazed!