Waiting On God

Psalm 88

"O Lord, the God who saves me,
day and night I cry out before you.
May my prayer come before you;
turn your ear to my cry.

For my soul is full of trouble
and my life draws near the grave.
I am counted among those who go
down to the pit;
I am like a man without strength.
I am set apart with the dead,
like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
who are cut off from your care...

From my youth I have been afflicted
and close to death;
I have suffered your terrors and am
in despair.
Your wrath has swept over me;
your terrors have destroyed me.
All day long they surround me like a
flood;
they have completely engulfed me.
You have taken my companions and
loved ones from me;
the darkness is my closest friend."

I left out some pieces in the middle of that...but let me tell you, what I left out is darker than what's there. I didn't take out the part that speaks to hope and peace and light.

A man named Heman felt this way at some point and wrote his cries to God. I would venture to say we all feel this way at some point. And God in His grace allowed this to be in the Bible that we may see that these feelings will come...thousands of years later, what I'm feeling, what you're feeling, isn't anything new.

"What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done
again;
there is nothing new under the sun..."
Ecclesiastes 1:9

A sweet friend, at the leading of the Lord this morning, said, "Maybe all this is just about waiting on God."

In Isaiah 38, a man named Hezekiah became extremely sick and was told by Isaiah (a prophet) to get his house in order because the Lord said he was going to die, and soon.

"Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, 'Remember, O Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.' And Hezekiah wept bitterly."

Waiting on God.

Though our hearts and our heads believe in the hope of eternity, trust in the promise of God...waiting on those promises isn't easy. Waiting can be painful.

This same friend then reminded me of Peter. Peter who had an extremely close relationship with Jesus. Like...BFFs. Peter who denied ever having known Christ and then had to watch him die.

Peter had to wait on God.

And I can only imagine how excruciating that wait was. After all Christ had done for him, taught him, and how he had loved him, Peter said he didn't know the man. And then he had to watch him die the most painful, drawn out death one could endure.

Jesus died. And he didn't immediately rise as I'm assuming many hoped that he would. For three days, Peter had to live with that. Live with the pain. Live with the tears. Live with restless sleep. Live with anxiety. Peter had to wait.

For three days, God simply made him wait.

Even Jesus had to wait. Jesus knew what was coming to him. He knew he was going to die. He knew what kind of pain his body was about to experience. And in the time shortly before that, he went to a place called Gethsemane and it says he began to be, "deeply distressed and troubled." In his own words, he said, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death..." But God didn't expedite the process because of the pain of anxiety and fear. Jesus fully experienced every minute of those days.

Waiting on God. It isn't easy.

We can wait to be healed. We can wait to know the answers. We can wait to find joy. We can wait to die. We can wait to be with our family again. We can wait to be with our friends again. We can wait for peace to come. We can wait for hope.

And as we wait it may hurt. We may be afraid. We may be anxious. We may cry. We may even laugh. We may end up moving a blanket and a pillow to the couch in the middle of the night to watch The Golden Girls. We may eat frozen pizza and coke for dinner. We may isolate ourselves or distract ourselves. We may look at pictures or we may tear up pictures. We may listen to sad music or we may listen to happy music.

But as we wait, we can turn to the promises for those who are called to it...

"Since ancient times no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who acts on behalf of those who wait
for him."
Isaiah 64:4

"Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!"
Isaiah 30:18

God only asks that as we wait, we wait for Him.

In a moment I cannot even fathom, the waiting was over. And the Lord reappeared to Peter who literally threw himself out of the boat he was in to swim to shore. Although it doesn't say this in the Bible...I don't imagine that you throw yourself out of a boat without swimming as fast as you can, to run as fast as you can, to throw yourself at this man and embrace him with fervor you've never experienced before.

And Hezekiah was given 15 more years to live.

And Jesus...well, we all know what happened there. :)

How we wait doesn't matter so much as that we do. I don't know much about birds, don't really even like them. But I've heard that eagles use the wind to fly. The stronger the winds, the higher they fly. They use the force that's coming against them...

"...but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint."
Isaiah 40:31

Waiting on God. It isn't easy.

But it's worth it.