For two consecutive months my heart sank when I maneuvered my over-filled cart to the checkout lane and “The Daydreamer” bagged my groceries. As I watched her gaze off into the distance for every two items she packed, I wanted to snap my fingers in her face to grab her attention. Could I push her out of the way and bag my own groceries?
I did neither.
I did put a smile on my face.
But my insides did not match my outside.
Waiting. It can make me crazy. I put on a patience facade, but inside my heart races and my blood pressure rises. But God is calling me to wait on him and he shows me how in real-life incidents.
I’m grasping the idea that waiting is much bigger and much more important than I ever anticipated in my walk with Christ.
It’s also hard. Really hard.
It takes discipline. Ugh.
It takes perseverance. Too much sometimes.
God wants my inner self and outer self to be in harmony with each other. I might be able to fool others, but God is aware of the state of my heart.
If I were the most giving person, but my heart is resentful, my giving means nothing. I can be the most vocal for the socially oppressed, but if I oppress my fellow believers then my voice loses impact. If I raise my hands in worship or bow my body before the Lord, but refuse to surrender a secret hurt or offense then my worship means nothing.
Our outer self must reflect our inner self.
Psalm 37:34 “Wait for the Lord, keep his ways and he will exalt you to inherit the land.”
The key to having harmony between my inner and outer self lies in these three words: “keep his ways.”
But.
Sometimes keeping his ways is hard. Sometimes his ways lead us to a sea with our enemies closing in. And keeping his ways means surrendering a lifestyle or habit that is the opposite of kindness or unity or self-control or patience or goodness or life-giving words.
But we fail. You know? In one experience in the grocery store, we lose forward momentum. But we want to honor God and his word and we want to please him and receive his blessings so we keep trying and we keep failing.
Soon we are driven to the cross where we fall on our knees. We lift up our hands in surrender and we decide to wait on him because we are exhausted and can no longer keep doing and failing.
Waiting on the Lord begins with our impotence. We can do nothing in our own strength.
“Put your power in God’s omnipotence and find in waiting on God your deliverance. Your failure has been owing to only one thing: you sought to conquer and obey in your own strength. Come and bow before God who alone is good, and alone can work any good thing.” Andrew Murray, Waiting on God
We can talk ourselves into failing just by the overwhelming statement of “keep his ways.” But this I know: God takes us from strength to strength. Ability to ability. And we must carefully keep those that we have received the strength for, trusting him to guide our steps and guide our growth into the next one.
[bctt tweet=”In my full surrender I have full access to God’s blessings.” username=””]
In my impotence I am strengthened and filled with his goodness, his righteousness, and his love.
Waiting on God is about God’s magnificence, his faithfulness, his strength. It’s about recognizing that I am small and he is big. And it’s in my smallness that I experience his work in my life. The work that he brings from the inside out. The work that can only come from him, the work that is only through him, and the work that is only for him.
Will you join me in waiting on God?
