Waiting Quietly (My new Reality Series)

“it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” 

Lamentations 3:26

Patience is a virtue! I really admire patient people from a distance. I keep that separation of space so as not to try or test them in this most admirable quality! In fact, I believe I will get a heavenly reward for giving them space.

I love the thought of being patient. But “quiet” patience is probably too much for this human frame. While in the Waiting Room of Life, I have found that I just have to ask the person next to me what they are “in for” and then tell them about the "eternity" I have so patiently endured in that same room. It’s the kind of waiting room where no matter the wall color, it is always drab and has posted in it:

DO NOT GET EXCITED OR OVERLY HOPEFUL,

YOU ARE IN THE LAND OF NOT YET.

PLEASE RESPECT OTHERS AND BE QUIET!

But the room begs for noise. It invites someone to get so loud for so long, that someone will give in and get you out! The reason for this is that while waiting, you imagine you have surely been forgotten and a signal fire and beacon should bring relief right away. Yes, make enough noise and they will escort you out.  Not the “out” you expected, mind you, but simply moved into a smaller holding tank with hard, cold, metal chairs and magazines that nobody reads.

There you will have to change into their version of a fig leaf, and you will be asked again to wait quietly alone. With this, you have been fooled! Now that you are by yourself, they will know you are the one drumming on every hard object in the room and making those loud sighing noises. You will be moved to an even more secluded “facility”.

Not so with our wait! If we will wait quietly, we will be able to hear His voice and know we have not been forgotten. If we know that He is aware, we will continue to wait quietly with assurance of His salvation. No signal flares need to be shot into the sky; His spotlights of love and mercy already beam down upon us. It is good to wait quietly!

Just Words?

"The Sovereign LORD has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed." 

Isaiah 50:4

I am able to recount many times through the years when I have heard someone say, “They are just words. They mean nothing!” or, “You think that just by saying these words everything is going to be okay?”

I know what they mean as they utter “those are just words” and their faces are lined with hurt, anger, disappointment or possibly derision.  All of us have been at a point somewhere along the way when we have needed more than words because the past history in which they had been used had cheapened them to the point of being valueless.

Paul asked the question, “Who has believed the news we bring or the story we tell” and many times after delivering God’s Word, I wonder if the listeners perceived that what they had received was indeed His Word.  Or, did they walk away thinking those are “just words.”  Sometimes we have so cheapened our words that it causes a “Whatever” response to utterances which should never be dismissed with such ease. 

Being a pastor, my world has pretty much revolved around life-giving words.  In the beginning days of my ministry the power of words and my lack of ability in speaking really scared me.  I knew that people could possibly be hanging on to my words, which was okay.  I just didn’t want them to be hung or even hung up by my words!  That’s about the time that Isaiah 50:4 really registered with me. It was like God was saying to me, “I will be with you to help bring about your purpose for life. I will teach you to speak for me!”

Since that time, I have learned and have often rehearsed out loud the fact that our words are used to ease our pain and increase our joy.  Through our words the weary are sustained and the powerful work of transformation is given shape, focus and clarity.  Friends, the words we use are not weak and impotent, they are in fact powerful, quick, sharp and unerring in their ability to make glad the heart.

Jesus said, “The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life..”   So, don’t leave home without them, choose them wisely and please don’t underestimate their ability to powerfully work in the heart and mind of those who have had their ear awakened to hear!

HE KNOWS THE WAY!

“But He knows the way I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” Job 23:10

Job shares the perplexity he has experienced in trying to see and talk to God during his personal storm. This particular bewilderment does not belong only to Job! We have all experienced, if we are honest, that dark night when seeing Him is nearly impossible.

“He is not there, I do not find Him, I do not see Him, I catch no glimpse of Him”, he says in exasperation. Then he turns his gaze upward when he says, “But He knows the way I take.”

Even though Job had failed to see God, he realizes that God has not failed to see him. Indeed his inability to see God in the storm is a part of the test that will reveal that which is most precious. God has a plan for you! Jeremiah says, “He knows the plans He has for us”, and He is mindful of those plans as we journey through the storm.

I am reminded that my four Grandchildren never ask for detail directions or a road map when we are traveling. They just want to know when we will get there and they leave the rest to me! Anything more than that gets lost in their childlike understanding. Unlike them, I think I still need to understand all the twists, turns and detours along the road and I definitely want to see the map or hear my Onstar Assistant, especially Emily from England, who knows everything about Georgia!

That is the walk of faith, not that we know our plans but that we believe He does! In believing that about our Heavenly Father we can have a faith which weathers every storm. Wesley prayed, “Put me to what you will.” I say “Amen” and add with the great Methodist, “You are mine, and I am yours. So be it!”