What Does Waiting Mean

So, what does it mean to wait on the Lord?  To wait on the Lord is to look to Him in expectation, and to eagerly anticipate what He is about to do.  It sounds so easy right?  I can look to the Lord in expectation of bringing my waiting to closure, and yes, I am eagerly anticipating what He is about to do and when He is about to do it.  And yet, when that waiting lasts day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, it is one of the hardest things the Lord will ever ask us to do.

It’s not just about the waiting either.  It’s often about WHAT we are waiting for, as we wait for different things at different times in our lives.  Sometimes we are waiting for direction from God.  Sometimes we are waiting for doors to be opened that only He has the power to open.  Sometimes we are waiting for extremely murky and confusing situations to come clear.  And sometimes we are waiting for the deepest needs and longings of our hearts to finally be fulfilled by God.

The one constant in all of our waiting on the Lord is the passage of time.  In Psalm 130:5-6, the psalmist writes, ‘I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits, and in His word I put my hope.  I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. ”[i]

The psalmist is comparing his own waiting to that of the night watchmen who eagerly anticipated the coming dawn of morning as that would signify their release from duty.  The watchmen knew that the dawn would surely come, but it would only come with the passing of time.  It is in the same way that we eagerly await the passing of time to bring our release from our waiting period.

During this time of waiting, we often have the opportunity (said with a very large smile on my face) to surrender our timing to God’s timing.  We have the most wonderful ideas about when something in our lives should occur – down to the date and the time.  I know I have been even so bold, and yes naïve, to share those wonderful ideas with the Lord.  In fact, at this point in my life, I firmly believed, and shared with the Lord, that I would have a loving husband who I had been married to at least 10 years, 2 well-behaved kids – a boy and a girl, an awesome dog, and a great home.  Well…….I have the great dog and home, but apparently my timing on the other desires of my heart was WAY off.

More often than not, however, our ideas on timing are light years apart from God’s plans.  So we must surrender to His timing, and when we do, He can do amazing things in us and for us.  The hard part is reminding ourselves that God acts on behalf of those who wait for Him.  In fact, the Bible tells us, “Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for Him.”[ii]

Although the waiting is excruciatingly difficult and seems absolutely pointless, our waiting is never useless.  Let me repeat that point because I think it is just that important!  Although the waiting is excruciatingly difficult and seems absolutely pointless, our waiting is never useless!!!  God is working behind the scenes and things are happening that we cannot even begin to fathom.

It’s as if our lives are the threads making up a beautiful tapestry.  We often can only see the underside of the tapestry which is messy, with threads connected here and there in seemingly no rhyme or reason.  Some threads even seem to disappear into a dead-end.  But God has the design of the tapestry of our lives ever at the forefront of His mind.  Each and every thread has a perfect place and has a purpose within the tapestry.  When the tapestry is finally turned over, and God reveals His work, we will finally understand how every single thread of our lives came together to present the most breathtaking picture.

But far too often, we want to help the Lord with the weaving of tapestry because we are impatient.  We don’t want to wait for Him to finish the last few threads on the tapestry or to tie the last few knots, so we grab it off the loom before it is completed.  We don’t want to wait for Him to ripen the fruit, and so we pick it while it is still green.  We don’t want to wait for the answers to our prayers, so we move ahead in the way we think is right.  Our impatience and restlessness only result in one thing…more trouble in our lives.  Our human interference will result in one outcome…it will make things messier than they already are…and it will exhaust us in the process.

Although our natural tendencies cry out for movement, we must will ourselves to wait.  (And you have no idea how hard this is for me to say as a self-professed “get to it” kind of girl.) You and I must listen ever so closely to that still quiet voice (that I often wish was a still medium or still loud voice) of the Holy Spirit, guiding us in the way that we should go.  We need to accept what the Lord is doing in our lives and trust Him to fulfill His perfect will for our lives.  We need to wait with purposeful anticipation of God accomplishing all that He has promised.

[i] NIV Psalm 130:5-6

[ii] NIV Isaiah 64:4