Imagine with me you are hired to do a job that you are extremely passionate about.  You give the job over one hundred percent (100%) and all the resources that you have available to you.  Everyone is satisfied and happy with the job you have done, there are no complaints.  Now is it time for you to get paid.   You are told that you will have to wait for wages because there is no money to pay you.  You wait and wait and wait on that day that appears to be permanently out of your line of sight.

Job 7:2b -3  Like a …hired labourer waiting to be paid so I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me.

Waiting…waiting. None of us like to do it but we do it daily… waiting for dawn, for a job, at the tax office, to buy food, to pay bills, to catch a bus and the list goes on. Waiting has a way of bringing out the best or worse in us. If we are waiting on something that is certain we tend to wait more patiently than when the outcome is uncertain. Job, while going through his series of trials, compared waiting to months of futility and nights of misery. Waiting on God to vindicate Him felt like punishment as He was not sure why he was undergoing this and adding to his pain were his friends’ cutting words.  

Waiting in uncertain times is never easy.  However, it is when we are uncertain that we need to realize that the journey we undergo  while waiting is most important to our development. Too often when we are in this tight spot we focus on coming out instead of the internal changes that happen to us and need to happen to us before we come out. If we don’t turn the spotlight on the inside then we are most likely to repeat the same mistakes. Are we productive in these waiting moments? Are we using them to prepare us for the next stage of the journey? Look at our character Job.  In his months of waiting in a shaky place he was able to move from a place where he knew about God to encountering God face to face in his might and power.  He was being shaped for his next assignment where he got a second chance to raise family in the way of the Lord, teach friends about proper worship and gain God-given prosperity.

Therefore it is important how and who we focus on during the times of waiting.  The Scriptures say “they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles they will run and not be weary they will walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31). How are all these things even possible?  The impossible becomes possible because waiting upon the Lord changes the ‘waiter’s’ focus from the yoke of the urgent, hectic, busy, rat race pace to green pastures and still waters where souls are restored by the Lord in His timing.  So renewal, strength, mounting up from the ground to a higher perspective, running and walking is possible after this period of slowing down.

Has God moved you into a period of waiting and you don’t know where to turn? Drop yourself at the feet of Jesus and wrestle with Him until He answers you.  Don’t give up even though this doesn’t seem to make sense. Hold on, you are being prepared for your next assignment. 

PRAYER

Lord I don’t like to wait.  Waiting is hard and often feels like futility and misery.  Help me to lean on you in these times as you seek to free me from all that would hinder me and prevent me from reaching glory.  If there is anything I need to do differently, show me Lord so that I can remain in your will as I wait.  Jesus I love you.  Amen