Sunday, March 1, 1998

WAIT FOR THE LORD

Psalm 27:14
"Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the Lord."

Waiting, we hate it, yet it's an absolute part of life.

Whether you go to the bank, the post office, the supermarket, the Department of Motor Vehicle Office, YOU WAIT.

If you stay home you wait. You wait for the delivery person who will be there sometime between 8 and 1. You wait on the phone, because a friend has call waiting or a company has the wonderful recording, "We’re sorry all available agents are busy. Your call is important to us...."

We could all share our war stories of when we had to wait.

It has been said, anything of great value is worth the wait. There is no greater evidence then in child bearing.

We can’t wait until we find out that we are pregnant

We can’t wait until the baby is born.

If you think the waiting stops there, you are sadly mistaken. Once the baby is here, we can’t wait: until he sleeps through the night; until he is crawling; until he is walking; until he is feeding himself; until he is potty trained.

As the child ages, we can’t wait until she learns that when the phone rings, this is not the time to ask for everything under the sun. We can’t wait until he is old enough to start school. Once they’re in school the child can’t wait until summer comes, and once summer is here, parents can’t wait until summer is over and they are back in school.

By the time they are in high school and you have provided taxi service for, what seems to be an eternity, you both can’t wait until they get their license.

This scenario of waiting, has been, is and will be repeated over and over, in homes across America. It is, as far as I am concern, the epitome of what has become the American way of life. One, that has even run over into our faith.

It was once said, "If God, knows our every need even before we ask, why doesn’t he just give to us, and save both of us a lot of time." What this person was saying is, "I don’t want to have to wait, not even for God."

David, the author of Psalm 27, has a contrary point of view. He said, "Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord."

David is telling us to WAIT for the Lord. He knew from experience what it meant to wait on the Lord. At the age of 16 he had been anointed king, BUT he didn’t become king until 14 years later. During which, King Saul, who was very jealous of him, hunted him down like an animal in an attempt to kill him. David, waited on God to fulfill His promise.

To wait on God, is not easy. When we urgently cry out to God, in pain and suffering and God seems slow to answer, we wonder if God really understands our predicament.

Psalm 27 points out to us, that while David waited, he learned: that it was he who didn’t understand, not God; that God was his light and his salvation; that there was nothing to fear. It didn’t matter if his adversaries were plotting to wage war against him. He believed that he would see the goodness of God.

David held to his conviction , that God would provide strength and courage, because he WAITED on the Lord every day. David sought Gods presence everyday. In other words David, WAITED on the Lord. He was already in the presence of God. All too often the only time we run to God is when we are in trouble. How short sighted we are. Many of our problems could be avoided or handled far more easily by seeking God’s help and direction beforehand.

"Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the Lord."

The last of the 4 runners of the mile relay team was standing in his lane, waiting for his teammate to round the last turn of the track. It was then that the runner in the next lane received the baton and began running the last lap for the other team.

As the runner looked back at his teammate, he also looked ahead at the distance the other team’s runner was putting between them. The waiting runner, became more and more anxious. Not able to wait any longer he bolted after the lead runner. Three quarters around the track he caught and passed the other team’s runner. But there was one problem. He did not have the baton. He and his team were disqualified. If he had only waited a few more seconds. The baton would have been passed to him and perhaps he would have had a chance of winning. However he forfeited that chance, by not waiting.

How often do you forfeit, the peace, the power, the strength, the comfort of God, because you don’t
WAIT for the LORD?

David calls you and I to WAIT, because he learned that God uses our waiting to refresh, renew, and teach us. You only hurt yourself, by not WAITING for the LORD on a daily basis. The next time you have to Wait, why not Wait with the Lord. Use the time to connect with your God, to be refreshed and renewed with the rest of the day.

"Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage;
Wait for the Lord!"

Pastor Rev. Richard Hayes Weyer

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Our thanks to the IPoint Midi Gallery for the Hymn "I Surrender All"