The Pitfalls of Waiting - Isaiah 30:18

The Pitfalls of Waiting - Isaiah 30:18

An interminably long time in a line at the post office!  Long lines seem to form when you are ready to check-out at the grocery store.  At your favorite department store, suddenly a line forms as you approach the cashier with your one sale item.  Then, there is the family member, friend or colleague who makes us wait for them despite our warnings and encouragement to the contrary.  Our repulsion of lines is indicative of our hatred of waiting.  Quite simply, we detest waiting on anyone or anything.  We particularly hate waiting on Almighty God!

Spiritually speaking, waiting contains several significant pitfalls.  Our frustration with waiting on God often leads to counterproductive choices.  Impatience inevitably results in impulsivity and its concomitant decisions.  The Bible contains two contrasting images of places to wait for God.  First, there is the wilderness full with its daily challenges of preservation, protection and provision.  There, the children of Israel constantly complain about what they lost in the exodus from Egypt and what they lack as a result of their liberation from 450 years of slavery in a foreign land.  Instead of expressing their gratitude for the gracious gift of freedom, they articulate their contempt for Almighty God by detailing His failure to provide bread, meat, and water.  Actually, they recall the spices with which the meals in Egypt were prepared.  The Israelites incessant complaints demonstrate one of the major pitfalls of waiting on God.

Second, in contradistinction, the apostles obey the Lord’s command, after the resurrection, and retreat to the “Upper Room.”  There, the Holy Spirit comes upon  them and infuses they with divine power, literally, dynamite.  Empowered with the Spirit of God, the apostles leave the upper room with the internal, spiritual, and personal fortitude necessary to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.  They face many obstacles as the book of Acts records.  Yet, they count it all joy because the power of God flows through them and empowers them to succeed in their ministry.  For them, this period of waiting becomes a time of preparation, focus, empowerment and affirmation.  Accordingly, they avoid the pitfalls of waiting.

There are five strong temptations that arise when we experience a period of waiting for God.  First, we begin to fret.  You may recall a young child who waits eagerly for his father to come home from a trip with a gift.  As the time approaches for his dad to arrive, the child becomes more and more anxious.  He fidgets and speaks incessantly out of the bottomless pit of his anxiety.  The agony of waiting makes him insufferable to any surrounding adults.  The child keeps asking about the time.  A minute seems equal to an hour.  He repeats the question about time in as many different ways as he can.  Despite his mother’s pleas to calm down and wait, the child must occupy the time with some noise or activity that he thinks will make the time pass more quickly.  Should it appear that his father will be late, the child starts fretting.  He fears that his father is in some danger or is lost and cannot get home.  The child is afraid that his father will not come home.  He entertains the awful thought that his father has forgotten him and the family.  True to his selfish nature at this point in his development, the child ponders whether the father remembers to bring home his gift.  The sum of the lad’s fretting exhausts him emotionally, mentally, psychologically and physically.  Not surprisingly, the child falls asleep.  In the morning, he awakes and discovers his gifts beside his pillow.  He then wonders why he began to fret and doubt his father’s words and actions.

As we wait for God, we digress to the state of that child.  We hold pity parties.  We allow ourselves to slip into depression. We begin to ask a litany of unhelpful questions which resemble the previously mentioned grumbling of the children of Israel in the wilderness.  However, the psalmist encourages us, “Fret not!”  Bleak circumstances tend to trick us into believing that Almighty God has abandoned us to the negativity of our present situation.  Like a particularly cloudy day, we forget that the sun actually shines and gives warmth and life to all that it touches.  Fretting is the first pitfall of waiting that we must avoid in order to realize the emergence of the “good, pleasing, and perfect will of God” in our lives.