Waiting on God

Waiting on God… that phrase brings up all sorts of emotions whenever I think about it. It is a sort of bittersweet thing really. It feels bitter because the thing desired is eating away at you…..but the aftertaste is sweet when you consider the One on whom you are waiting.

Whatever the thing is you are waiting for… it is something you desire with great expectancy. It is usually something you actually need, or something you want so badly that it feels like an actual need. In my life I think it has been first and foremost a desire to see God work in my life is some specific way—to see Him change something in my heart, or to see Him give me a level of direction or vision that I previously didn’t experience. Sometimes it has also been in regard to relationships—my desire and “need” for genuine friendship or companionship and not being able to see how He was or is providing for me in those areas. Things like these can eat away at a person--things desperately wanted, but incapable of being acquiring by simple self-effort. They are things that only the Father can provide. The wanting of things in this category can be a desperately bitter thing to experience. It can be soul-trying--the epitome of depression and demotivation.

Yet, I find that the waiting for these things is also sweet. Why sweet? Do I like waiting? Do I like pain? Or am I just by nature a patient person? No way. It is sweet because of what I know about the One I am waiting on. I know that He can provide the thing I desire. I know that He loves me more than I can comprehend. I also know that he will not deny me anything that I ask for if I ask for it with pure motives according to His will. I remember that His delay in providing has a reason. What glorious knowledge this is! The sourness is turned to sweetness as I stop to savor the thing that has been denied me. It reminds me of the sourpatch candy my sisters and I always buy at the penny candy store on vacation in Cape Cod. The stuff has a distinct bite to it as you first taste it, but the sweet aftertaste is addictive!

In Isaiah 40, the writer says “those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not faint.” This waiting is not sleeping or doing nothing---it is a type of active resting in God. It is not a diminishing of desire—rather it is an intensifying of expectation that the desire will in some way be met. And it doesn’t result in exhaustion, it results in a mystifying multiplication of strength and energy. The ones who wait on God renew their strength in the sweetness of His character and His promises and then before they know it, the thing that once challenged them and overcame them is overcome as effortlessly as an eagle catching an updraft of wind that the Creator sent his way.

Just let us remember to wait. And let us remember the One on whom we wait—He is faithful.