“Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.” {Psalm 27:14}
They say having patience is a virtue. Virtue means showing high moral standards. When it comes to waiting on the Lord we sure need this virtue. Because when it comes to waiting on God, especially on something we want to come specifically from Him, we could never ever do wrong in waiting for Him. The Bible states that He does reward those who diligently seek after Him and waits for Him. Here’s King David who waited on the Lord and the Lord came through for him:
“I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.” {Psalm 40:1-3}
There are a lot of benefits in waiting on the Lord. It can bring healing to our souls, our minds, and our bodies. It can bring healing to our relationships with our families and friends and most importantly, in our relationship with the Lord. It can bring so much blessings into our lives. It can fulfill all our dreams and longings in this life if we just simply wait on Him.
But what does it mean to wait on Him? Now this is the tricky part because waiting on Him doesn’t just mean sitting in one place and doing nothing, or kneeling all day long in prayer. It could definitely mean waiting on Him in prayer, in your heart, in your spirit, but it also means not coming up with your own ideas of how He is going to answer you or bless you.
Often we say a prayer or a request to the Lord for Him to either bless us in this life – so many times so vague we don’t even know exactly what we mean by this, but we just want Him to nevertheless bless us – or we’re asking for a direction in our lives and we need Him to guide us, and after praying a day or two we go off and do not wait on Him anymore. We either forget about our prayers or we give up on Him and try to figure out how to attain our prayer requests on our own.
Then for many of us who ask for His blessings in general, we really mean financial blessings. We don’t want to admit it to Him, but if we’re truly honest we actually do want Him to make us rich and even famous. We want Him to bless us spiritually too but we don’t really understand what that entails and sometimes it sounds scary, so we ask for what we understand instead – physical blessing, i.e. money and more of it. Yet we’re so afraid to just come out and be blunt about Him blessing us financially we just say vague prayers to Him like, “Please bless me,” and assume God knows exactly what we mean. Of course He does, but it doesn’t get granted to us because we don’t wait long enough on Him to give it to us.
It is important that we seek the Lord for His meaning of blessing and not just ask Him to bless us and then walk away. If we really want Him to make us rich financially, then tell Him so. Don’t be shy about it. Since there is nothing we can hide from the Lord and pretending to desire something noble is a lie to Him, it is best to just tell Him exactly what we want from Him to do for us. The more honest we are with the Lord the better He can bless us.
I remember asking the Lord many years ago to bless me with the greatest thing He can bless me with, and when He responded with, “I give Myself” I was disappointed. I felt like what is that going to give me? In truth I was asking Him to make me rich or famous or something great and awesome, and yet at the same time I was also asking for something that will fill my life and give my life meaning. When He said, “I give Myself” – well there goes my being rich too. I thought, “How can I possibly become rich with God?” I had this impression He doesn’t like making people rich or giving them money. I grew up believing anyone who truly followed God was poor. After all, wasn’t He the one who told this rich man in the Bible to sell everything he had and give to the poor and to go and follow Him?
Anyway, thank the Lord He didn’t take back what He was giving me. After many years of continuing to talk to Him and seeking His face, I’ve come to recognize that there are levels of being rich. Being rich just doesn’t mean money, and yet He does give money too. But I’ve come to realize that often having money means responsibility and sometimes even stress and sorrow. I’ve realized too that there are many rich people out there that are so poor and miserable that God’s definition of being rich is something I want after all. Because not only will He provide and bless me financially, He also gives peace and joy money could never buy, which I have found out the rich wish they could have.
So first thing, if we want the Lord to bless us and we want Him to come and do something great in our lives, we better know exactly what we want. Get specific in your request to Him. If you don’t know what it is, tell Him so and ask Him to give to you what He thinks is best, because He knows what will make you happy and what will make you feel very rich indeed.
Second thing, if we know exactly what we’re asking the Lord for, make sure you wait on Him for it. Don’t come up with your own definition of His answer. Don’t try to help him out either or try to figure out how He’s going to bless you. The Lord knows how to work things out and answer your request. Some prayers go unanswered for years because He is working in our lives before He gives us our heart’s desires. God believe it or not can give us our heart’s desires like a Genie. Isaiah puts it this way, “And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” {Isaiah 65:24} After all He’s the one who can speak stuff into existence. Remember He merely spoke the world into existence. He doesn’t need materials to create things. We do. But since He isn’t a genie either, He sometimes will not grant people’s heart’s desire right on the spot because He has an ulterior motive in mind. Yes, you read it right: He has an ulterior motive when it comes to granting people’s requests. Fortunately for all of us, He is a God of Love and equally good, everything He does is good and pure and holy. So whatever ulterior motive He has, it is for our added benefit. Not only will He give us our heart’s desires He will also make sure we have the right character fit to receive the blessings we’ve requested, so that we will know how to handle the blessings we’ve asked of Him.
Now, this is where it gets complicated. Some people get blessed and get their desires supposedly granted to them, but they’re ruined spiritually. You wonder, what in the world happened to them? Well, this is exactly what I am saying, some people make their requests to the Lord and then “helps” Him out. They get so antsy about waiting on Him they start working really hard to grant their own requests. Soon they’re out there working on their PhDs and businesses and what not – getting too busy to wait on the Lord. Some are doing His ministry and His work while coming up with their own way for God to bless them. Instead of continuing to seek the Lord in prayer and in fasting or in His word, they’re out there busy creating business schemes and deals so when some blessings do come their way, they are so sure it’s God who is blessing them. Yet the Lord’s work is actually suffering and being put on hold while their businesses flourish. They call it God’s blessings and yet they’ve neglected His work. They’re working extra hard at their businesses and getting stressed out in the process, but still continue to call it the Lord blessing them. Then, they’re marriages fall apart and their children are having spiritual issues and they still continue to call it God’s blessing. They remind me so much of what the Lord told Prophet Haggai:
“Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. Ye looked for much, and, lo it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.” {Haggai 1:6-7, 9-10}
When the Lord blesses He adds no sorrow with it. This is what Proverbs said about it:
“The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.” {Proverbs 10:22}
It is not the Lord’s idea of blessing when we’ve forgotten Him, when we’re too busy to talk to Him and to spend an hour or two with Him and in His word. When your health is failing and your relationships with people are suffering, that is not God’s plan at all. Don’t equate financial blessing as God’s blessing or His will in your life. God’s blessing is always with peace and when He blesses every area of your life is blessed. He blesses you first in making you whole from the inside out. He is not a stingy God who gives with reservations like we do. He makes sure first we are whole inside. That is His true definition of blessing, that we are whole and well in our soul and spirit first. If our soul is suffering it’s because we’ve come up with our own definition of God’s blessing. That is not His definition anymore. I don’t care how wonderful your blessing looks, if that is what’s happening, if your soul is suffering because you have neglected your communion with Him and don’t look for His counsel anymore, it is time to repent and return back to the Lord and wait on Him. It is time to seek His face and find out what He really means in His blessings for you. Because when He decides to bless someone, He blesses that person through and through. He doesn’t just give a little. He gives pressed down, shaken together and running over. {Luke 6:38}
“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” {3 John 1:2}
We don’t want to end up like the church at Laodicea in Revelation. The Lord rebuked them for their being rich but spiritually they were so poor because they’ve neglected their relationship with Him:
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. {Revelation 3:15-19}
The key thing in waiting on the Lord is just that, waiting on Him. We wait with our hearts, with our thoughts, and with our spirit, as long as He wants us to. Always keep in mind what you asked and what you requested from Him, and always be talking to Him about them. Proverbs states:
Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD and depart from evil. {Proverbs 3:5-7}
Don’t get ahead of God. Wait on Him. And when you thought you’ve waited long on enough, do not settle for what you think His blessings might be, but wait even more for Him. Truth be told, when you love the Lord and want His counsel all the time, you never stop waiting on Him. But you will see when you do wait long enough for the Lord you will come to understand what He really means by blessing you. There will be no doubt about it. It will fill your heart and your soul, your life and everything around you will be touched by it. It is like the children of Israel when Cyrus the king of Persia told them they are welcome to go back to their land and build back the temple of the Lord. He sent them with abundance of gold and silver and all the vessels that belonged to the house of the Lord. They were dancing and shouting when God had finally turned their captivity into a time of healing and restoration. He blessed them indeed. Their wait was long but it was well worth it.
So will yours be. If you wait long enough on the Lord, He will turn your life around and your situation around that there is no doubt it can only be Him that turned it, so that you will in turn praise Him and love Him and worship Him. That is His other ulterior motive – for us all to love Him back. If we wait long enough on the Lord, we will come to see how wonderful and awesome He is. How worthy of worship and praise He truly is deserving of. We will come to love Him and come to praise Him. That’s why He wants us to wait on Him because He wants us to also know who He is.
“…And thou shalt know that I am the Lord, for they shall not be ashamed that wait for Me.” {Isaiah 49:23}
“For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” {Hebrews 10:37}
“When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them. The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad. Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” {Psalm 126}
“Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; He will come and save you.” {Isaiah 35:4}
