Waiting in a Dependant State

In Gary Thomas' Authentic Faith he makes a statement that is reality shattering for any American Christian...He says "In spite of our obsession with instant results, we serve a God whose calendar moves by millennia not minutes, and who thinks in terms of generations, not seasons. Unless we understand this about God - that he moves in millennia, not minutes - we will never understand his ways."


To illustrate the above point, Thomas notes that it took God 25 years to deliver on His promise to Abraham by providing Isaac…see Genesis 12…Thomas also uses Psalm 130: 5-6 to illustrate that God's blessings do not always come with the speed of a bullet, but rather with the slow, steady approach of a glacier…See also, Lamentations 3:24,26…

Thomas notes that one clear fact remains: God will not be rushed…

However, honestly, "this 'discipline' of waiting on God can be debilitating and suck our souls dry - unless it is marked by hope in God. Waiting, for the believer, is not the futile and desperate act of those who have no other options, but rather a confident trust that eventually God will set things right" - even if he is operating outside of our time frame (Isaiah 40:31)...


It is true that without a willingness to wait on the Lord, we will become "regularly frustrated" with God and we can, as a result, become disillusioned with our faith…Sometimes, we will have to wait until the present becomes the past before we can make sense of what is happening at present….

We must remember that this "discipline" of waiting on God is the single place that belongs to us as children of the Living God...As Andrew Murray pointed out, this place of utter and sole dependence on God is the only place or state in our lives that God has promised to bless and commune with us...

May we seek this place of dependence...May the "waiting" that is required of us so that we grow in maturity and faith be a place of worship not whining...

JW