Waiting is perhaps one of the most difficult practices of the Christian faith. But may I say it is one of the most important means of obedience to learn as a Christian. It is vital to our faith and every work of God in our lives and in the church is usually preceded by a time of waiting. Why is this so? I like how pastor James Montgomery Boice’s answers this question:

If you are going through a period like that [waiting on God] in your life, when you know what you should do but do not know why you need to do it, or if you are experiencing a delay in God’s dealings with you and it seems that you are stuck in one spot and can’t quite get off it, learn that there is a valuable preparation for future work just in remaining where God has put you. The action will come later. (James Montgomery Boice, Acts, 32)

God is preparing us for something, but waiting is vital to prepare us for that work. God is not a God who controls us for His whim and humor. He is not like the little boy whose malicious delight is in pouring salt on a slug to watch it squirm. God’s call for us to wait always has a purpose for us and that purpose is that He prepares us and protects us in order to follow Him and to trust Him and to delight in Him. Without waiting upon Him, we simply wouldn’t depend on Him and He knows that. He knows that our tendency is to jump headlong into something without Him, like the toddler that pulls his hand from his mother to run between two cars into onrushing traffic. We too pull away from God to move in our timing only to rush into the path of an oncoming car. And as we lay there broken and bruised, we don’t blame ourselves, but instead, we blame God while asking Him, “Why God?”   Or we ask God, “Why did you get me into this mess of a job I can’t stand while my family falls apart,” meanwhile forgetting that I decided the money and power that that job offered was the true reason I took the job in the first place and “seeking after God’s will” was nothing more than a rubber stamp of my already-made decision.

I too have leapt in front of that car many times. When my wife and I were first married, it dawned on me that I was going to have to care for someone other than me. And we were moving from Boston to Chicago so I could go to school. Neither she nor I had any means of income. So the pressing thought was, “How were we going to survive?”  Well, when we had returned from our honeymoon preparing to move to Chicago, I received a phone call from a pastor who had heard about me through a mutual friend. He asked me to come down and meet with him about a position. Of course, I believed it was from the Lord. I went to that meeting, and accepted the position after a quick discussion with my wife. But frankly speaking, I might have spent 5 minutes in prayer, really a “bless me Lord as I make this decision because it’s the best one and the opportunity has to be from you” type of prayer. No waiting. No seeking Him and His will. No searching and mediating on His Word. No extra counsel from those wiser believers. I simply had a “This has to be from God” mentality.  And as a result of that decision, I ran into the middle of that street flattened on my back from my running ahead. It was the most difficult year of our marriage still to this day. I poorly led my wife. I was impetuous and cocky in ministry. And only by God’s sheer grace, did we leave that church in Chicago well, after persevering through that first year. Waiting on the Lord in prayer means sometimes waiting on choices that can even seem like God opening doors. If it really is the Lord, the doors will be open regardless of ourwaiting. No one has ever missed God’s opportunity for them by spending time in prayer and in His Word seeking His will. No one.

And He never asks us to wait any longer than we should. We should never think that we’ll miss opportunities by waiting on Him. I am not talking about laziness or procrastination or fear which makes us wait. I am talking about intentionally and fervently seeking His will. His timing is perfect. The Ecclesiastes writer makes this so clear for us, especially in chapter 3, where He begins with verse 1: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”

Maybe for some of you, this is a season of waiting for you. Are you waiting on a future spouse, on a possible job opportunity, on an acceptance into a school, on an opportunity for reconciliation with a friend? Oh how difficult waiting is. You simply want to take matters into your own hands, don’t you? Well, know that God has not abandoned you during this time. Far from it. He is right by your side, caring for you, preparing you for something far greater. But you need to trust Him and you need to wait in Him and as you do, I know you will be like the psalmist in Psalm 40, declaring to all the world:

I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. 2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. 3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.

And so too, the disciples realized they had to wait following Jesus’ ascension and before the coming of the Holy Spirit. Even Peter had to wait and you can imagine how hard it must have been for someone like Peter, impetuous Peter. Peter’s personality was all about action. And can you imagine also how antsy he must have been? After all, he was the one who had denied Jesus. John 21 reveals how Jesus called Peter to account in front of all of the others for his denials. So now everyone had known what Peter had done. In fact, his denials and cowardliness is there for all to see, and trillions of people know Peter’s dirty laundry. Can you imagine how badly Peter must have wanted to “make up” for his denials and prove himself with his action?

And yet, it was Peter who recognized that they had to wait upon Jesus to act. He finally came to recognize that waiting on God was vital to following Christ. And he and the rest of the disciples also realized one critical understanding of waiting on God, an aspect of waiting on Him, that serves us today as we wait on God, the primary means of waiting on God in prayer.