Lessons Learned While Waiting

What are you waiting for? To be more specific, what are you waiting on God for? Identify that thing or those things you have laid before the Lord in prayer repeatedly and you wait on Him to accomplish. I am sure you have some. It seems we are all waiting on God for something. 

Why does it seem time passes so slowly while we are waiting on God? Back in July of 2020 I waited on God for healing and recovery from the Corona Virus. I could not quit coughing. The worst of it lasted for two weeks. The cough lingered for months afterward to some degree. Neither could I sleep at night. I tried sleeping in recliners. I stayed up late. When I did fall asleep it was sheer exhaustion. My sleep patterns go all out whack. This went on day after day and night after night. At times I felt it would never end. I could not think clearly. I begged God for healing. I had to wait on God for that healing. Brenda and I were confined to our home for 14 straight days. She still tells me that is one of her favorite times in our marriage. We spent time together just the two of us. She sat in her chair and me in mine. Sometimes she was on her tablet and I read a book or cat napped. 

Back this past winter we lost our heat along with millions of others in Texas in sub zero temperatures. Our only source of heat came from our fireplace which we used non stop. We went 36 hours straight without electricity. I pleaded with God to not let me react to that trial like a spoiled American. Even with the constant fire going we could not get the temperature above 50 degrees in the house. We dressed in layers and sat and slept under piles of blanket sWaiting back then was miserable. God brought us through it. 

There have been numerous prayers lifted that the Lord answered by telling us to wait. Like waiting for His second coming in this crazy mixed up world. Like waiting on God to bring prodigals to repentance and return them home. Like waiting on mountains to be moved, for provision to come, burdens to be lifted, sorrows to be soothed, and hope to be maintained. 

There can come a point for believers when you have prayed every single prayer you have inside you. You reach a point where you have nothing else to say. Tears fall containing a mixture of emotions. You wrestle with the fact that God has all the power to intervene in your situation if He wills, but grapple with why so often He makes you wait in suffering. Satan can use and twist those thoughts taking yo down a dark path of despair. 

There are lessons to be learned. Promises to permeate those dark places. Truth to anchor our souls. 

Those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired and walk not become weary. [Is 40:31]

The first lesson, is that we find new strength when we wait on the LORD. The word hope in that passage means to hope and expect God to help us. It is easy to lose hope while waiting, to grow fainthearted and discouraged. It is during those times that God gives new strength. To put that another way, to give us fresh strength for each day and each trial. We never have to lose heart while waiting on God if He is continually supplying fresh hope. 

One meaning for the word strength in that passage means stubbornness. We hope and expect God to give us the stubbornness to keep waiting on Him. To keep trusting. To keep believing. Not to give up. Not give into depression and despair. 

Another lesson to be learned, is that He gives faith like mounting up like an eagle to soar above our storms. In those times we find peace in His presence. Our circumstances may not have changed but our attitudes and outlook change drastically. We get His perspective and see things from His vantage point. Some things we stress over while we wait seem such like big things right now. In just a matter of months they will not be that big deal. We may not even remember them. In God let us soar above this pandemic, above political turbulent times, above tyranny and above never ending sorrows on top of sorrows. 

An additional lesson to take to heart, is He wants us to keep moving forward. To stay in stride with Him. How often do we get stuck waiting. We obsess over waiting. We only think about what we are waiting for and pray about whatever we are waiting on God to do for us. We stop right there. Our only agenda in coming to Him is for answers and breakthrough. He desires us to keep following hard after Him. 

I recall one of the most painful confusing periods of my life several years ago. I was a spiritual, emotional, and mental wreck. As a pastor, Sundays keep coming around as well as Wednesdays whether you feel like ministering the word or not. I cried out in agony those days admitting there was no way I could preach and  teach things I privately struggled to believe. Each time God helped me. I preached to myself most of all. 

A businessman came to me during that time and told me how he almost lost his business. He told me the thing that got him through that hard period was those Sunday morning sermons when I had struggled myself. I never shared my personal struggles. God used that time to keep moving me forward to help others when I thought I could not possibly be any help to anyone. He can do the same with you. 

I'm waiting on God like so many of you. Waiting on my brother in law to be fully healed and restored to health from his battle with Covid-19. Waiting on my house to sell in Runaway Bay so Brenda and I can be together in the same house more than a couple days a week. Waiting on clarified vision for this church. Waiting on provision. Waiting on revival. Waiting on God to heal people in the flock. Waiting on so many things like so many of you. We can learn in this time. 

One final lesson. Take the long view. I look back over past waiting periods I thought would never end. They did end. God came through in some astounding ways.  Consider a three year period of praying for God's provision of vehicles for my family. The provision did not come. At times I felt foolish for even praying such prayers. It felt like God would never come through. We waited a long time but God answered. Five vehicles in five weeks. It was incredible. Be encouraged. Take the long view. Quit obsessing over the short term. In His good time and according to His good pleasure, He will perform what glorifies Him. I have waited enough times and seen Him do just that over and over. Learn what He wants to teach you in these waiting seasons. 

Axing The Noble

 In 1892 publicists were looking for attractions for the 1893 world fair. Hundreds of letters were sent all over the nation soliciting potential attractions. A small community in California received one of those letters and go the idea of sending a section of a giant Sequoia tree. Few people around the world even believed such massive trees existed. So a dream was born. To cut a section of one of those massive trees and ship it to Chicago for the 1893 World Fair. 

Once permission was secured to fell one of the big trees the plan went into motion. The owner of the timber could not bring himself to cut the biggest tree down, so they chose the second largest. Towering among all other trees but one.  The circumference of the tree was 101' around. A massive sight. 

It took four axe men 13 straight days to cut the tree down. 312 hours. 1,248 man hours. Countless swings. Repeated sharpening of the axe head. Refueling and refreshing through nourishment and rest. Continuous labor. Teamwork. The resolve to complete the task for the whole world to see. You know they got tired. You know the task was harder than they first imagined. The Noble Tree as it came to be known did not give up its fight for life easily. They had to build scaffolding fifty feet off the ground to accomplish the task. Those four men kept swinging. Hour after hour. Day after day. One week and one day shy of two weeks. 

Can you imagine the thrill when the massive mighty tree finally gave way and fell. I try to imagine the vibration of the earth as the tree thudded to the earth and the cloud of dust that rose like a mushroom cloud from an atom bomb. What an impressive accomplishment. 

The work was not done. They dug out a 50' section of the widest part and made it into a two story structure with a room on top. Once the World's Fair ended they moved the tree to Washington DC where it remained a tourist attraction for nearly 40 years. 

It all started with a dream and four men who were willing to put in the work to make the dream come true. The labored for a cause much bigger than themselves. 

The job was much too large for just one person. Just like the task of taking Jesus to our community is too large for one person, one class or even one church. Estimates that very soon there will be over 300,000 people in Parker County. All the churches combined could not hold that many people. 

Expand that task to taking the gospel of Jesus to the whole world and we are reminded we need help. Help from one another. We need teams to help. We need missionaries to die to the American dream and go follow the call of God to take the gospel to those who have never heard. We also need God's help. Only He can empower us to stay at it until the task is done. Christians have been at this task for over 2,000 years. There are still those who have not heard. We must keep swinging our gospel axes until people fall in surrender to salvation and nations fall to Jesus  jut like the Noble Tree fell to those four axe men. Until the whole world hears.