Waiting may seem like an easy thing to do, but it is a discipline that a Christian soldier does not learn without years of training. Marching and drills are much easier for God’s warriors than standing still.
There are times of indecision and confusion; when even the most willing person, who eagerly desires to serve the Lord, does not know what direction to take. (this is so me right now). So what should you do when you find yourself in this situation? Should you allow yourself to be overcome with despair? Should you turn back in cowardice or in fear or rush ahead in ignorance?
You should simply wait….but wait in prayer, wait in faith, and wait in quiet patience. Never complain about what you believe to be the cause of your problem, as the children of Israel did against Moses. Accept your situation exactly as it is and then simply place it with your whole heart into the hand of your covenant God. And while removing any self will, say to Him, “Lord, Not my will, but yours be done”. I do not know what to do and I am in great need. But I will wait until you divide the flood before me or drive back my enemies. (Condensed excerpt from ‘Streams In The Dessert’)
Recently the above devotional was such a comfort to my heart as I find myself in this very place of indecision and confusion yet more willing than ever to serve the Lord whose feet I have been sitting at. Yes, waiting is hard sometimes, no, not sometimes but all the time, unless we believe that the Lord is in control of the situation that is causing us to wait in the first place. Most of the time a place of waiting is a wilderness place where you feel like you’re just walking around in circles and not getting anywhere, think of the Israelites in the desert for 40 years on a journey that should have taken 11 days. That’s because we measure progress by the amount of ground we cover, God measures progress by the amount of trust and faith we exhibit when it looks to us like He doesn’t have a clue where He is going. Let’s face it, we all know He always knows where He is going, but in that moment of time in the wilderness the feeling we have that He doesn’t is all part of the test.
Part of the ability to wait in quiet patience comes from realizing that the wilderness isn’t a place of punishment but preparation. That is the part I seem to have a hard time remembering. It is because of where the Lord is taking us that the preparation is necessary. He wants to teach us to worship in the wilderness instead of whine. What we worship we will serve.
Worship in the wilderness comes out of a place of absolute trust in His nature and character no matter what the physical circumstances are. Our problem is we are uncomfortable with being totally dependent on Him to supply what we need but it is our surrender to Him in that place that births our worship. We want to have a plan 'B' just in case His plan seems to be going awry, (which at some point it will look that way to us) but if we want Him then we have to obey Him, period. It easy to obey when the instructions suit us, but in the wilderness they usually appear to be in complete contradiction to the circumstances we find ourselves in at the time. Part of what we learn in the wilderness is that Gods provision is in obeying what He says, not what we see.
Worship in the wilderness comes out of a place of absolute trust in His nature and character no matter what the physical circumstances are. Our problem is we are uncomfortable with being totally dependent on Him to supply what we need but it is our surrender to Him in that place that births our worship. We want to have a plan 'B' just in case His plan seems to be going awry, (which at some point it will look that way to us) but if we want Him then we have to obey Him, period. It easy to obey when the instructions suit us, but in the wilderness they usually appear to be in complete contradiction to the circumstances we find ourselves in at the time. Part of what we learn in the wilderness is that Gods provision is in obeying what He says, not what we see.
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