Waiting For The Lord – Sunday, November 09, 1980
We have heard the Choir sing, “I waited for the Lord.”1 Is there anything harder than waiting? We find it difficult enough to wait for a late companion, a late meal or a doctor’s appointment. But to wait for the Lord, to wait for that special blessing we’re sure we deserve, to wait for comfort in our grieving moments, to wait for relief when our whole heart cries out in the urgency of its need, those are times when patience is a virtue almost beyond reach.
When we feel the Lord has let us down, perhaps we need to look again. It’s easy for us to look at life as some kind of a grand scale gumball machine, where we put in our change and immediately get something in return. But it just doesn’t always work that way. Yes, the Lord has promised us that our blessings are predicated upon obedience to His laws, and He never fails to keep His promise. But if we expect blessings on our terms, in our time frame, according to our schedule, we may find ourselves disappointed. We just don’t know the time, or will, or purposes of the Lord.
Satan was so sure of the inevitable human reaction to frustration that he told the Lord,
referring to Job: “. . . thou has blessed the work of his hands and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now. . . and he will curse thee to thy face.”2
There are many who have a constant, seemingly unfair, struggle just to survive, who have more than their share of misfortune. Even some of the most righteous people have had the most serious struggles. Did not all of Christ’s apostles meet with a violent death? But does that mean they do not or will not receive the blessings they have earned? No.
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart,”3 we’re told. Know that it is not possible for Him to forget us. Know that He has a boundless love for us that is perfect.
And perhaps the best way we can show our love for Him is in that moment when we feel most forgotten that we continue to turn to Him for guidance. That we still obey, still try, still kneel in prayer for even greater patience. To trust the Lord means to say, as Job did in that desperate moment when with his family dead, his property destroyed and his own body wracked with disease, still he testified, “. . . I know that my Redeemer liveth and that He shall stand at the latter-day upon the earth. . . (and) yet in my flesh shall l see God.”4
1 From Choir number. “I Waited For the Lord,” Mendelssohn, No.17.
2 Job 1:10-11.
3 Proverbs 3:5.
4 Job 19:25-26.
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November 09, 1980
Broadcast Number 2,673