Practice Waiting

Isaiah 40:31

None of us likes to wait! We tell our children “To come here, now,” and we get this response “Ok, give me a minute.” What about those days when you are are running late? You’re ready and waiting on your spouse or children to get ready. You get in the car and rush out of the driveway and if you drive 10 mph over the speed limit you can make up lost time. No sweat, right? Then a school bus or some slow driver pulls out in front of you. Ugh!!! They finally turn off and then you get caught at every stoplight. Are you serious? You finally get to the school to drop off the kids and you realize everybody else is running late that day. The line is long. You go to pick up your mobile coffee order and it’s not ready. This can’t be happening! Finally, you get to work, and you are completely exhausted. Why is this? The adrenaline that was built up during all that time of stress and frustration has already used up a good portion of your morning energy. You’re already tired and you have done nothing but waited.

No, none of us like to wait. We live in a culture of the now. Fast food, fast internet, fast money and fast cars. Maybe if we fasted a little more, we could improve in our lack of patience…lol. Not only does this have an effect on our secular living but also our spiritual lives as well. Sometimes we have this fast-paced mentality when it comes to our prayer lives and prayer needs. We pray for things and we want God to answer them right then not even considering the fact that He has all of eternity to answer it. The problem is we don’t have all of eternity. We live in time. Our time! Thank God He does work in our time and answers when He knows best. But sometimes when the answer is long in arriving we grow tired and weary. We just become spiritually exhausted and frustrated, and our spiritual energy is spent. But this should not be the case to us as Christians.

The scripture says, “They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.” Waiting on God should never exhaust us but replenish us. It should strengthen us! When we are waiting on the Lord we should not grow spiritually tired but become spiritually energetic. Spiritually strong! In fact, Isaiah goes on to say “They shall mount up on eagles' wings. They shall run and not grow weary. The walk and not grow faint.” Running and not get weary? Walking and not growing faint? This doesn’t sound like a lot of our mornings, does it?

But what about your spiritual life? Is your spiritual strength exhausted everyday or renewed? Do you feel that by the middle of the day you have lost your spiritual energy or do your feel the confidence and power that comes from a healthy disciplined prayer life? If not practice waiting! Some things only get better with practice.

Pastor Robby