One of the things I have always enjoyed during the summer is the quick day trip without any particular destination in mind. I’ve always enjoyed the path less traveled and have a tendency to prefer both U.S. Highways and state highways to Interstate travel. It has always amazed me the truly remarkable things that we miss in our “hurry up and get there” attitudes towards travel. We lose the chance to see the old churches, the old downtown areas and even the opportunity to make new friendships simply because we do not take the time to appreciate the places that our travels take us to.
Much is the same attitude many of us have in our relationships with God. As I began to prepare for this post, I decided to look to the Psalms to begin this particular study. David, even when in times of great trials and struggles, would pen these psalms, he often spoke from the heart. David wrote, Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day (Psalms 25:5). It is an interesting verse; I’ve read it a hundred times but this time, it’s the last part of the verse – on thee do I wait all day – that caught my attention. Within the grammatical structure of the verse is something that I hadn’t noticed before – as David said, we should be more than willing to wait on God because not only is he the God of our salvation but he leads and teaches us.
As a parent, I cannot tell you how many times I have asked my children to wait on me to help them with certain tasks; all through the Bible God asks us to wait on him, much like we do with our children. Often trying to convince a child that they need to wait for us is difficult; as Christians there are times we do not want to wait! When I first accepted Christ as my personal Saviour, I could not wait to become a Sunday School teacher, when I felt the call to serve, I could not wait to serve as a pastor, not realizing that God had a different plan for my life. Instead of waiting and being patient for God to show me his plan, I acted on my own. When David wrote, Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass (Psalms 37:.7), he was reminding himself and us who read that psalms that we must remain focused on the Lord and not on what others are doing around us. There are rewards for obedience to God’s will, even if we do not understand why God wants us to simply wait.
The apostle Paul had to remind Christians at the church in Rome to be patient in their desire to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. He wrote, Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good (Romans 12:6-9). He knew that at the church within that pagan and imperial city that those who were now Christians were chomping at the bit to expand the church’s ministries. If we use the contemporary church as our model, they wanted to build a bus ministry, senior citizen’s ministry, Christian school to serve first through twelfth grade, send three of their own on the mission field to Africa, and build a sanctuary that could seat 10,000 – all within the first three years of the founding of the church!
