Thursday, June 23, 2011

The Waiting Game

Psalm 27:14 reads,

Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.

Background
The Psalms in general deal a lot with waiting. Have you caught that as you are reading them? They deal a lot with waiting. Waiting is a theme for a lot of the Psalms. More so than any other book in the Bible. In the NIV you find these verses in the Psalms that talk about waiting on the Lord:

- Psalm 5:3
- Psalm 27:14
- Psalm 33:20
- Psalm 37:7
- Psalm 37:34
- Psalm 40:1
- Psalm 38:15
- Psalm 119:66
- Psalm 130:5
- Psalm 130:6

This is the case with the ones written by David; Israel’s shepherd-king. David was familiar with waiting. He had to wait on God to sort out all the mishaps with his rise to kingship. There was a lot of tension between him and King Saul. There were times when David had to literally get out of dodge, leave Jerusalem, because his life was in trouble. He had Saul’s men looking for him to kill him.

During that very difficult time David learned to wait upon the Lord.

David also had opportunity to speed up the waiting process. David could have ended the waiting. He had a chance, while hidden deep within a cave, to kill King Saul, but he chose to wait upon the Lord.

- Would you have been able to do that?
- How do you feel about waiting upon the Lord?
- How do you handle it?

3 comments:

David McConnehey said...

One of the first things a Christian learns when becoming a follower of Christ, is that if you truly seek his will, it is sometimes a very slow process, but ALWAYS perfect. Everything the Lord has ever blessed me with has been PERFECT for me, but I usually had to wait on it. He does sometimes act fast, but look at how long his people were captive before being freed from Egypt. For me, I rest in the fact that God's will is ALWAYS perfect, and my will is ALWAYS messed up...so if I want the GOOD, then I got to be willing to wait for it.

Tim Sheets said...

You are right on Dave! This is why I would include waiting in a basic Bible study, if I ever wrote my own, for new Christians. It is something you have to realize early on. It seems most things don't happen in an instant like ordering fast food.

T <><

Shell*Belle said...

I have been learning a lot lately about waiting. One of the most interesting things I've realized is that most people thing waiting on something is kicking back and doing nothing.. it's actually the opposite. When we wait we are to wait expecting something great to happen. I recently read a Bible Study by Hampton Keathley called Waiting on the Lord. Here is what he says about the word wait:
"In the NASB the word most often translated “wait” in the sense of waiting on the Lord is the Hebrew qavah. Qavah means (1) “to bind together” (perhaps by twisting strands as in making a rope), (2) “look patiently,” (3) “tarry or wait,” and (4) “hope, expect, look eagerly.” "

Thanks for the blog Tim! It came a the PERFECT time!