In Psalm 62:5-8 we hear, “My soul, wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him.
He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be moved.
In God is my salvation and my glory; The rock of my strength, And my refuge, is in God.
Trust in Him at all times, you people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.”
Are we willing to wait in silence for God? We are hyperactive and impatient when it comes to waiting on God. In our fast-pace world we need answers and solutions now! God doesn’t work that way. He’s more like your doctor. You know, you sign-in and take a seat in the waiting room. You look at several magazines before your name is called. After weighing you in and taking your blood pressure the nurse takes you into an examining room that is about 33 degrees F. and tells you to take most of your clothes off.
Fifteen or twenty minutes later with an inch of ice on your body you hear the doctor talking to a patient in the next room. It sounds like they are going to talk forever. The conversation finally stops and you know that you’re next. You wait another ten minutes during which time you put most of your clothes back on, and sure enough the doctor opens the door and looks at you like, “Why aren’t you ready for me to examine you?” The message here is that God takes much longer!
In our impatience with God, we decide that we might as well try some other avenues since God is taking His time. That usually compounds whatever problem we are trying to deal with. Usually by the time God checks his messages, we’re in the damage control phase or maybe our fate is a done deal and we need redemption. Our impatience with God can actually precipitate a problem. If we will only wait on Him, “His time” will take over. He may create a pause, a stop, a slow motion or even speed things up if “His time” requires it. As a friend said the other day, “Einstein didn’t come up with the ‘theory of relativity’, he borrowed it from God!”
The Psalmist continues, “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” Things don’t seem to change much for us humans. With all of our modern advancements, we have the same challenges that humans faced all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Every generation has to push the envelope to its limit. It’s human nature. That’s why God sent Jesus. After the fall in the Garden, it just didn’t look like we humans were going to be able to get it right. So out of His love for us, He sent His Son to teach us and then sacrificed Him to atone for our sinful condition.
I say this prayer many times, “Dear Lord, Thank You for caring so much. Help me to be patient with You. Give me the strength to wait until I can’t wait any longer and then wait a little bit more. You are the all-knowing one, so I shouldn’t second-guess You. It will only hurt me. Help me understand David when he sings his Psalm to me saying, ‘On God rests my deliverance and my honor…’” AMEN.
Robert Halsey Pine was born at Newark, Ohio in 1943. He is a graduate of Northeastern University and completed the program of Theological Education by Extention: Education for Ministry, School of Theology, the University of the South.