Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord. (Psalm 27:14)
This part of the scriptures caught my eye this morning. Sometimes you see something in a passage you have read several times, but weren’t ready to see. That is what is unique about the word of God. It is alive in that it touches you in different ways depending on where you are on your journey with God.
Today, this passage says, “Hurry up and wait.” Like so much truth, it is paradoxical. The words “brave’ and “courageous” are not often associated with waiting. “Brave” and “courageous” are action words; they are adverbs telling us not what to think but how to act. That’s why I don’t believe “waiting” here means sitting around doing nothing. It’s a spiritual kind of waiting that implies that the Lord will show up at the right time. It could even mean He’s there all along; we just don’t see Him all the time, so in the meantime, when we don’t see Him or know what He is doing, we continue forward, bravely and courageously waiting on God to show up in our faithfulness.
Marti will like this because she is an action-oriented person. She doesn’t know how to wait. She’s moving, churning, all the time. She gets an idea or hears a directive from the Lord and she is off down the road a few blocks before the rest of us know what happened. I honestly can’t keep up with her. She complains about having to drag me along most of the time. That’s because, for me, waiting means hanging back having a cold one.
For instance, I returned home yesterday to find my office knee deep in papers that were once in binders and folders all over the room. Marti announced that everything on the floor was to be thrown away. Now I know that in the amount of time it took her to amass that pile up, I would have handled maybe three pieces – staring at them for a while before putting them back down somewhere because I didn’t know what else to do with them.
In my book, waiting means just that – wait. Don’t do anything. Hang around for instructions. Don’t run ahead. Sit back. Relax. Wait. Well, mix that with a naturally lazy person and you have a spiritual justification for doing nothing. Which can’t be it either, because doing nothing doesn’t sound very brave or courageous.
That’s why I believe the truth involves both of us. It means to make plans and move forward bravely and courageously, listening for the Lord while you go, because if the Lord isn’t in it, you are spinning your wheels and might as well be doing nothing.
In other words, waiting on the Lord is an attitude of the heart that knows that all my efforts will amount to nothing if the Lord isn’t with me. So I move forward bravely with my ear cocked in His direction. It’s what Paul says we do with fear and trembling knowing it is the Lord who is working in us to achieve His will and purpose.
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed — not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence — continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. (Philippians 2:12-13)
Simple, right? But wait…
John Fischer The Catch 
Well said. My spiritual life was revolutionized when I finally figured out that “waiting upon the Lord” is NOT like sitting in the dugout. It’s in the batter’s box. You have to keep your head in the game, watch (and obey) the coach’s signals, concentrate on the pitcher and (of course) keep your eye on the ball. When “your” pitch comes…you’re ready.
I liked how you, Pastor John handle the differences in yours & Marti’s personality types, plus for me reading Dr. Robert A. Rohm’s book: “You’ve Got Style” and it gives a good understand & working knowledge to the reader of how to handle, or deal w/ the 4 different personality types, (PT).
PS I luv his book because it gave me a very big advantage in showing someone the Amway Biz plan – in that we all have different learning & understanding styles, so instead of jus presenting it in my style and i like to talk sabout it. Now w/ Dr. Rohm’s method of understanding PT, i can ask two quick questions and from their answers, get a pretty good idea of their PT and present it in a way, or fashion that best suits them – i find this also works well for sharing God’s love – sometimes some people may have a hard time w/ you giving them a PT test, so I sometimes will say something like, in-order for me to speak in terms that you may understand a bit better, let me plz ask you 2 questions and go from from their answers in how to proceed… 🙂
Isn’t it wonderful to serve a Lord whose Word provides mixed messages! If we listen, we hear both:
– Don’t just sit there, do something!
and
– Don’t just do something, sit there!
But I guess that is the price of our free will, and the price of a faith that is an alive, ongoing relationship rather than a set of clear, step-by-step instructions.
I wonder how much time I’ve wasted through the years just waiting for God to do something. Now God has brought someone into my life who sounds like Marti. He has made such a difference in so many people’s lives, while I was busy “waiting on God.” But I’m learning to do what my hand finds to do while I wait. Someone said that a car can’t change directions unless it’s moving.