Psalm 27:13-14 (NLT)
Yet I am confident I will see the Lord’s goodness while I am here in the land of the living. Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.
Over the last few years, I have collectively spent more time in waiting rooms than I have for the rest of my natural born life. Appointment after appointment with our son has reduced my animosity over long periods of sitting, reading, texting and people watching as it has become somewhat routine. I have a good friend who works as a cosmetologist. He had a very successful salon in New York before coming to teach his craft in Florida. We were discussing waiting one day and he confessed that he will not wait more than ten minutes because in his profession time is worth money. One day after waiting for his doctor, he went to tell the receptionist that he had another commitment and would need to reschedule for another time. The woman pointed to a sign that warned patients who missed their scheduled appointment time would be billed $25.00 for cancellations or no-shows. A bit miffed, he left and the next day sent the doctor a bill for $25.00 for seeing him at the scheduled time and missing the appointment. The doctor paid the bill.
Time is our most valuable commodity. Human nature is always is a hurry to make the most of our time cramming everything and anything that it can think into an already packed and overloaded regimen. I like to be busy. I am very task-oriented. When I feel worry and stress on my heels, I run to find something to do usually cleaning. There are other people who waste a lot of time doing nothing. There is no rhyme or reason to the things they do in life without any goals or true direction so they become dissatisfied in their lack of progression. We must not only become conscious of the purpose in each moment of our life and the potential hidden there. Not only in our activity but especially in our inactivity.
Psalm 27 is one of my most favorite passages in the Word of God. David is under great pressure in his life. He is being pursued by his enemies. He feels the pressure to give up. I sense that he hears the voices of others filled with the clamor of opinions and endless advice. He is lost in the crowd yet feels all alone. David is afraid. He hears the Lord calling to his heart to come closer and talk with Him. His heart responds “I am coming” as the man is trying to find his way. (Verse 8) David knows that if he can just get into the Presence of God that everything will be okay. (Verse 27) If he can just get back that one thing, everything will fall into place. Where are you today? Are you running from the enemy? Is fear knocking on your door? Do you feel as though you are going under? Are you stuck in what feels like a perpetual waiting room? The Lord is whispering today, “Come and talk with me.” How will you respond?
2 Corinthians 12:8-9 (NLT)
Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.
Waiting is not a weakness. It is considered to be a strength. It is a quality of endurance that is often taken for granted or overlooked. To find power, we must first become weak. Why don’t we like to wait? We feel our time is important and it is. However, if I choose not to wait for our son’s doctor there could be life or death consequences. If he chooses to something else with his time, he definitely would find it more enjoyable but it might cut his life short tremendously. We must understand the importance of waiting so maybe just maybe that is why we find ourselves waiting in life. Waiting stretches and strengthens our patience. I hate to wait due to my impatient nature. There is an innate tendency at least in me that if I cannot get others to do it my way according to my timeline than I will simply do it myself. But on the other hand find it in my heart to complain that no one ever does their part or helps me. Hang on while I finish my humble pie.
The most difficult part of our son’s journey for me has been the waiting. When he has a scan, I want to know ten minutes later the results. Hey, I gave them ten minutes right? When he gets chemotherapy, I want to know his blood count immediately. When I go to pick up his prescription, I don’t want to wait for it just pick it up and move on to the next scheduled visit. When we walk in the office, I want to keep walking to the exam room not sit in the waiting room watching others come and go. Maybe some of you cannot relate to endless doctor’s appointments, exams, tests and the like. Praise God! Before our son became famous at the doctor’s office, I hated to wait in line at the grocery store. I wanted to lay on the horn when the light changed and the car in front of me chose to take a breath before moving. I grew anxious walking behind slow people. I grew frustrated with incompetent cashiers. Rush, rush, rush. Hurry, hurry, hurry. I was going nowhere fast. It was not because all of these annoying people and aggravating scenarios were taking place. I just didn’t see any value in waiting. I did not understand that when I called on His Name and asked Him to change my life that waiting would become an important part of the process of renewal, restoration and redemption in my life.
Galatians 5:22-23 (NLT)
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
The Holy Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience… In my opinion, patience got top honors being listed number four on the list. When you think about it God has given us His Love, Jesus promised to give us joy and peace. Patience is a product of the Spirit of God in us and requires a process. Why? Patience is humility. (Ecclesiastes 7:8) Pride cannot exist where patience prevails. We are surrendering our time and intelligence to the Lord allowing Him to work out the details of our life rather than rushing to do it ourselves. It is as basic as allowing another person to walk in front of you in line even when you are in hurry and it not bothering you at all. Before I spent time waiting on the Lord, I would have politely informed the person of their error. But now, it is just no big deal. As we become more and more satisfied with what the Lord does with our time and the promises revealed after we have waited, we understand that He can do way more with our time than we can. Also, it is how we prove that He lives in us. (2 Corinthians 6:6)
Psalm 5:1-3 (NLT)
O Lord, hear me as I pray; pay attention to my groaning. Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for I pray to no one but you. Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly.
Do you wait expectantly on the Lord? Before you answer, consider how much time you spend in His Word each day? Do you pray throughout the day? Are you talking to God and listening to Him? Or do you talk at the Lord making consistent demands? If you do not believe that God is doing anything in your life, you will never reap the benefits of His Promises. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6) It is not enough to say you believe, even the demons do. But it means sacrificing your time, your most precious commodity to seeking Him in our everyday life. God knows our heart. A wholehearted commitment is required to find blessing in our wait time. Without seeds of faith planted in righteousness, there will be no harvest. Faith planted in righteousness will yield a harvest. Once we put our faith in Jesus Christ and His Righteousness alone like the farmer all we can “do” is wait. There is nothing we can add to His Word or work with our hands to change the outcome. Even if we could, it would never be better than what God has planned for us. (Ephesians 3:20)
Welcome to the waiting room? Make yourself comfortable if you can. It could be minutes or it may be years before the harvest you are after comes pouring into your life. It may be up to you to make it happen by order of cease and desist. The Lord may be waiting on you to stop trying to force His Hand and make it happen. He may be waiting for you to take your hand off of the substitution or counterfeit the enemy has handed you. God may be waiting for you to stop complaining or pull the root of bitterness out of your heart so that He can makes something beautiful successfully grow there. Maybe He just wants you to take your eyes off the clock and look at Him again. When we surrender our time to waiting on God rather than struggling when we are called to do so, maybe, just maybe our wait time will end if only for that moment.
Here are four tips for enduring the waiting room of God today –
1) Philippians 1:6 (NLT) And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. You have an appointment. You wouldn’t have gone to the office waiting room if you didn’t expect to be seen. You are certain that you have an allotted time to be there so you wait. Be confident. Be certain. You have not been forgotten. You have not been abandoned by God. This is not punishment. There is a great deal going on behind the scenes as God releases His Goodness in every detail of our life. (Romans 8:28)
2) Psalm 139:6 (NLT) You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. You are on assignment. There is purpose and meaning in every moment of our life – good or bad, happy or sad, moving or waiting. Time has been allotted according the Eternity that has been placed in our heart not the natural conditions of this dying world. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11) When we enter a physical waiting room, we have an intended purpose for the meeting. It is important enough to spend time waiting to see the person on the other side of the door. If we just ask the Lord, He will begin to reveal the awesome and remarkable secrets about who we really were meant to be and where we are going. (Jeremiah 33:3) We must decide that the purpose and plan of God are worth waiting. We do that by discovering the secret of our life from the Creator of it. God has a plan for your life. Waiting can be all about realigning our life with that plan or working out each detail to His Perfection. (Psalm 138:8) God does not wait when we wait. In fact, it is in these times of total trust and confidence in His Plan that we move aside to give the Lord room to move in our life.
3) I Corinthians 1:8-9 (NLT) He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be free from all blame on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns. God will do this, for he is faithful to do what he says, and he has invited you into partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. We have an attachment to Christ. We schedule appointments with certain doctors and specialists in the care of our son based on their reputation or special knowledge of the kind of cancer that he has battled. We have gone through some pretty frightening and harrowing adventures with these physicians for a very long time now. We trust them. When the hospital tried to send our son away because the next procedure to save his life was denied, it was this same team of professionals who fought to keep him in their care. They knew that they had the answer and were willing to put their careers on the line for him to be treated. We have a bond that now transcends the disease and has become personal. We must form a bond and attachment to Jesus Christ more than personal attachments to other people. We are willing to wait on the doctor but many times do not wait on the Lord. I know you cannot see Him. I know that Jesus cannot put His Arm around you and tell you it will be okay. But His Spirit lives inside of you. Rather than a pat on the back or a shoulder to cry on, I would rather have the peace and joy of the Lord any day of the week. Statistically our son should not be alive – but he is. Doctors no longer take credit but call him a miracle. They realize that what they are witnessing in this kid is nothing less than supernatural. God is our strength. He has become the One who we rely on in this situation. Now I must learn to strengthen this attachment to the Lord concerning every aspect of my life. I will only wait when I believe that I have an appointment and there is something to be accomplished. Those who endure to the end will be saved. I want that to be me. I want my husband and children to live the same way. The ripple keeps growing and growing. I want to be free from blame when I meet Jesus face to face. It says in this passage that “God will do this” through my partnership with Christ. Waiting allows me to focus on my partnership with Christ when I cannot participate in the process.
4) Finally, Isaiah 40:31 (NLT) But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. There is an achievement. Your wait time has great promise, potential and purpose that is worth all the time and energy that you are investing. God is giving you new strength. His Spirit is producing every single harvest that He promised in each moment. You are not helpless but helped. You are not hopeless but hopeful. You are not being humbled but in your humility God is honoring you. When it is your time to break free from the waiting room and soar high above, you will begin to see the workings of God and be blown away by His Perfect Plan that left not a single detail out. To leave the waiting room and look for your way will abort the process causing your dream to die. Do not leave. Grab a good book or THE Book. Talk to someone. Tell them about your God and what He has done and is doing in your life. Sometimes I listen to praise music on headphones to put my mind at ease. The waiting room is not the morgue. It is a place of healing, restoration and revival. Those who wait will be strengthened! Keep focused on the One who you are waiting for and He will reassure you that your sacrifice of time will be worth it.
Psalm 62:5-8 (NLT)
Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. My victory and honor come from God alone.
He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me. O my people, trust in him at all times.
Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge.
As I have shared before, our daughter will soon be married. Her fiancé has already moved in their home. So each week, box by box and hanger by hanger she is moving her things into the apartment getting ready for the big day. This is her new life. She is transitioning piece by piece from one location to the other. It is a happy occasion. It is God’s Plan. We are in total agreement and have peace. It does not make the process less difficult. She is changing her life from what she has always known to the next step that God has for her. Isn’t that how it is for all of us as we begin to hand our life over to Christ? We now must learn to love and trust someone else completely. We must take our life and transition from darkness to light and from this world to His Kingdom. It can be overwhelming. It can be a little or a lot frightening but day by day, moment by moment this is what it is all about until one day we can say, “Let all that I am wait quietly before the Lord.” Welcome to the Waiting Room, enjoy your stay!
Psalm 62:1-2 (NLT)
I wait quietly before God, for my victory comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will never be shaken.
Pure Devotion 