Friday, March 23, 2007

Christy and Norah...

Waiting

If there’s one thing people in our society hate to do, it is to wait… We want everything and we want it now. That’s why we have fast food, fast cars, fast-access DSL, instant rice, instant coffee and instant oats. It’s why we have quick oil changes and quick weight loss programs. It’s why we have shorthand, shortcuts and short tempers! We don’t have time to sit around and wait for stuff… we don’t want to burn daylight or we’ll wind up burning the midnight oil… We need results and we need them five minutes ago!

I think the enemy of our soul loves this about us… the way we get in a hurry and hate waiting. He knows that our inability to wait for stuff is really grounded in our unwillingness to trust God. If we trusted God we wouldn’t work ourselves up into a fit because we sometimes have to wait for stuff. If we trusted God we would be able to relax and wait for Him to give us everything we need in His time.

When Satan appeared to Jesus in the wilderness to tempt Him, he attacked that trust… He tempted Jesus with quick and painless results to see if our Lord would trust His Father. Luke 4:5-7 says, “The devil led Him up to a high place and showed Him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to Him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you will worship me, it will all be yours.”

Somehow all the kingdoms of the world flashed before Jesus’ eyes in an instant… a fast-access kingship… An immediate sovereignty… This is the way our old enemy always works. He can’t actually think of anything good on his own, so he just takes whatever good and wonderful things God is already planning on giving us and tries to convince us to take them for ourselves out of God’s context or out of God’s timing… You see, The Father is going to give Jesus all the authority and splendor of all the kingdoms of this world, but it will be in the Father’s time. And Jesus had to wait and He had to go to the cross in order to get the crown.

We need to learn how to wait… how to be patient. We need to learn to trust God to give us every good and perfect gift at the right time… after (and only after) He has brought us through all He has in mind for us to be all He has planned. We don’t need everything now. We’re not ready for all of it yet. So let’s trust the Father and just wait on Him.

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