If our waiting is not prayer soaked, sooner or later we are guaranteed to become impatient; and impatience more often than not will always create its own idols. Look with me at Isaiah 30:15-17
‘For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:
“In returning and rest you shall be saved;
In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”
But you would not,
And you said, “No, for we will flee on horses”—
Therefore you shall flee! And, “We will ride on swift horses ”—
Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift!’
‘One thousand shall flee at the threat of one,
At the threat of five, you shall flee,
Till you are left as a pole on top of a mountain
And as a banner on a hill.’
Isaiah 30:15 has to be one of my favorite verses. Returning, rest, quietness, and confidence; these are the things God is requiring of us for Him to work His salvation in our lives. But guess what our reply often is: No, we will flee on horses.
O God, please forgive our unending foolishness.
In our waiting on God, are we returning to God over and over again? Are we resting in who He is? Are we quiet in His presence? Are we confident of His character?
Our waiting must be prayer soaked if we are ever going to patiently wait for Him and Him alone.
Trust
When we fully trust God, we confidently stay wherever He is asking us to stay and we confidently wait for Him.
“But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. But Paul called with a loud voice, saying, “Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.” Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household.” Acts 16:25-34
O brothers and sisters, only if we truly understood the power we have in Jesus’ name! O God, please forgive us. Please forgive us for all the times we have neglected the power we have in You, Jesus! O Father, please forgive us for despairing when we have eternity in You. O Lord, forgive our narrow-mindedness. Forgive us Mighty King for crying of thirst when we have You as a well. O Lord! Wretched sinners, we truly are, but Father, You knew it all along; teach us yet again to prayerfully wait on You. To never settle for the works of our hands, but to settle for Your will alone.
Did you see the miracles that Paul and Silas brought about by simply praying and singing hymns to God as they sat in prison? Let me list them for us:
- A great earthquake
- Foundations of the prison were shaken
- The doors were opened and everyone’s chained were loosed
- The keeper of the prison got saved and his household
- They also got baptized
- Paul and Silas’ stripes were washed
- Fellowship and rejoicing
What miracles are waiting to happen by you simply praying and singing to God? As you wait, continuously pray for God to move in your situation. Sure, some answers take a while to get answered; and some answers we will only see them on the other side in heaven; I am aware of that, but I also know this very thing: God consistently invites us to bring Him all things, to pray without ceasing. Only Him will decide if I will have an answer now or in eternity. It’s never my place to decide if the thing I am praying for will get an answer here or in glory!
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” Matthew 7:7-8,11
“…You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” James 4:2-3
I don’t know about you but I never want to deny myself a miracle that God is more than willing to grant me. And through prayer, I get to know God deeper and more clearly and I get an opportunity to receive what I asked for.
Father of kindness, there will never be anyone like you for eternity and beyond. Thank you for Your matchless love O faithful King! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!
At the Altar
When we pray, we leave our prayers at the altar and wait for God to do what He wants to do with our requests. But I am afraid many of us return to the altar and decide to take care of our own requests or worse, we tell God what to do with the prayers we have offered Him.
Whatever we bring at God’s altar, that very thing is no longer ours but God’s.
“You shall make an altar of earth for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you.” Exodus 20:24
How dare we dictate what God should do with what we are bringing at His altar? But who hasn’t done this?
And to clarify, there is a difference between presenting a request to God and dictating what God should do.
Presenting requests to God is our appropriate response to God’s invitation to ask Him as our loving Father.
Dictating to God is what happens when we are impatient and we start telling God what to do. Do you know what grows first in the soil of impatience? Ungratefulness. First, we are ungrateful because God is not answering us the way we want Him to, then we move into phase 2, which is impatience. And impatience rarely produces any godly actions as we saw in Isaiah 30:15-17. Impatience makes us take matters into our hands ahead of God’s instruction.
O God, please forever save us from the deadliness and evilness of impatience. I pray, in Jesus’ name, that we forever lay our prayers at God’s altar in complete trust of God’s heart for us!
“But for You, O Lord, do I wait;
It is You, O Lord my God, who will answer.” Psalm 38:15
O Lord, my Savior, may I never desire no other answer but Yours and Yours alone!