What do we do when God seems slow?

Let’s face it. Waiting is hard. The good news is it is not up to us.  The Holy Spirit enables us to wait. Galatians 5:5 “Through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope.” Through the Spirit by faith… that means we get the opportunity to draw nearer the Holy Spirit while we wait for God to work our miracle(s) of righteousness. That puts my focus where it should be… on Him, not myself or others. It is usually stubborn family situations that get to me, of course, for they have been going on the longest and require the most patient endurance in the midst of waiting.  Waiting is an invitation to stillness.

A faithful brother added this insight to the subject of waiting on God: “The Hebrew word ‘qavah,’ which is translated ‘wait‘ in Isaiah 40:31, means ‘to bind together like a cord.’ As we wait on the Lord in stillness before Him with our hearts in a quiet state, it is like adding strands to a rope to strengthen it. Picture the process of making a rope by twisting or weaving (binding) thin cords together to form the rope. The more strands that are twisted or woven together in a rope, the greater its strength. We can assume that the more we are still to listen to God, the stronger we become. Ecclesiastes 4:12 says ‘… a cord of three strands is not quickly broken.’

“As we wait, we can choose to soak in the Lord Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. David wrote that he had “quieted his soul like a weaned child on his mother’s breast.” God speaks to our spirits, and our ears are trained to hear His voice (Isaiah 50:4). The mind wants to “ go go go,” but God says this is serious error (Isaiah 30). Our noisy souls must be told to be quiet and submit to our spirits and to God’s Spirit. In this age of incessant cell phones, texting, Internet, and TV, we have to choose to be intentional to wait to hear God’s still small voice.”

What is God trying to say to you about who He is and who you are in Him during this time of waiting?

Two Scriptural examples of people who did not wait on God show us the disastrous consequences of not waiting. God took the kingdom from Saul because of his impatience (1 Samuel 13:8-14). When God’s people forgot Him and did not wait for His counsel, He sent upon them wasting disease or leanness of soul (Psalms 106:13,15). You are probably painfully aware of times when you did not seek God’s counsel and ran ahead of Him. You have repented of these and asked God’s forgiveness. Ask Him to encourage you when you are impatient with waiting for the answer to prayer that you have desired the longest. Ask Him to give you grace to keep your hope fixed in the God-of-the-impossible.

By Sylvia Gunter
Used by Permission

From: Waiting on God, see Prayer Essentials For Living In His Presence,
Vol 2, page 277-280. © Sylvia Gunter 2000

FURTHER READING

• Wait on the Lord by Joshua Lim
• Wait on the Lord by Phil Ware
• Wait for the Lord by Katherine Kehler

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