Patience and waiting are difficult things for me. You see I'm a MAJOR type A and that means I'm usually doing or working on accomplishing something. So as I read Isaiah 40:28-31, a smile came to my face because I was reminded--once again--that waiting on the Lord is the wise way to operate through life. I came away with this: If the Lord is truly the everlasting God (and he is), then I (we) certainly don't need to be in such a hurry.
So what are some of the benefits of waiting on the Lord? How can we use Isaiah 40:28-31 to help us slow down (chill out) and wait on the Lord? Tami W.
Hurry Up and Wait
Some of the benefits of waiting is the Lord gives us strength and the He gives us understanding of things. If we work on his time and not ours the outcome will be a lot better and have a better undersatnding.
When we wait for the Lord's direction we will have the strength and energy to accomplish the task that He has placed in our hands (v 31). If we believe the Lord will meet our needs, then it is silly to step out ahead of the Lord. Our timing will be wrong and we will grow faint and weary, even youths will "fall exhausted"(v. 30).
Tami,
I'm much like you are. I don't like just sitting around. I like to be accomplishing things. I work for the federal government, so I've had to learn the rhythum of "hurry up and wait." Right now we're waiting to see what DC is going to do in regards to the budget which could affect our jobs. I am reading short devotionals often during my day to keep me focused on God. That seems to really help. I think that's a good thing to do to help quiet down our hearts and minds.
Carol
God's timing is absolutely perfect. The more we live for Him, the more He makes this fact crystal clear in our lives. So, waiting for the Lord's leading is something that just makes sense. When we go in His strength, we can succeed, whereas going in our own strength will only leave us exhausted and frustrated in the end.
First by waiting on God's timing we will learn patience and also understand that God's ways are not our ways and God's timing is not our timing. But I also think that it builds character, I look at when Jesus was in the desert for 40 days and He learned to fight the devil's attacks with scripture. We are so easily discouraged and give up the fight and continue to do what we want, but by waiting you will learn what God's up to.