TERROR TO TRIUMPH
CHALLENGES OF THE 21 CENTURY continued
“Patience is the result of well centered strength; it takes the strength of Almighty God to keep a man patient.” (OS)
“Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.” Psalms 27:14
“Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.” Psalms 37:7
“For the director of music. Of David. A Psalm. ‘I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry.’” Psalms 40:1
A virtue that is of great importance in our lives, but few of us seem to have it, is patience. Often by not waiting patiently for the Lord we have the capability of hindering the Lord, not helping the work of God. We can either move too slow, lagging behind the Lord, or too fast, running ahead of the Lord. Either way we hinder the Lord. A key word in all of this is “faith.” Do we really believe all that God says in His Word? “I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.” (Psalms 130:5) The Lord has given us a number of examples in Scripture to show us what he means.
In Genesis 16 we see the situation with Hagar and Ishmael. God had told Abraham that out of his body would come a son that would be heir to all that he has. However, time went on until it was, humanly speaking, impossible for Sarah to bear a child. Sarah came to Abraham and gave her handmaiden to Abraham to have a child with. This was an accepted custom in those days. Abraham does so, and the result was Ishmael. As soon as he was born there was confusion in Abraham’s camp and there still is. At the right time God gave Sarah the opportunity to conceive and bear a child and Isaac was born. It was through Isaac that the Abrahamic blessing would move. Sarah moved Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away. Ishmael became a mighty nation as well, and even today we see the problems of this situation in the Middle East. Here is a situation where it would have been good for Sarah and Abraham to have waited patiently for the Lord.
In Genesis 25-27 we see the situation with Jacob and Esau. The LORD said to their mother, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.”
The older will serve the younger. This is what God said. “When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called for Esau his older son and said to him, ‘My son.’ ‘Here I am,’” he answered. (Genesis 27:1) Here we see Isaac getting ready to bless Esau. However we read that Rebekah hears about what Isaac is ready to do. “Now Rebekah was listening as Isaac spoke to his son Esau.” (Genesis 27:5) She gets a hold of Jacob to share what is taking place and to hatch out a plan on how to help God out of this predicament. What was the result of all of this? Esau, rightly so, felt that Jacob had deceived him. “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.” (Genesis 27:35) Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. He said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” (Genesis 27:41) Jacob fled into his mother’s country and for a number of years did not have contact with his own people. Jacob found some of the same duplicity being played upon him when he goes to Laban to take a wife.
Another example of patiently waiting is David. David had been anointed as king by the prophet Samuel. Yet instead of being king he was fleeing for his life. Saul was relentless in trying to kill him. Instead of sitting on a throne, David was sitting on a rock in cave. It seemed that what the Lord said was not going to work out. We read in 1 Samuel 27:1 that David thought to himself, “One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul. The best thing I can do is to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel, and I will slip out of his hand.” Here we see David’s lapse of faith. David escapes to a city called Ziglag. Ziglag was a border town. It is a place of ‘compromise.’ David leads his six hundred valiant men into this place of compromise. I believe it had an effect not only upon him, but also upon his men.
What is the Lord trying to do in our lives? He wants to build character in us. A part of character that we need is patience and faith. God wants a pure faith in our lives. This is more important in the eyes of God than gold or silver. We must learn the lesson of waiting upon the Lord. First, we let Him speak and then secondly, we must learn to wait until He tells us to move.
It is my hope and prayer that you have been encouraged to not give up no matter what your failures are, and no matter what you see happening in the world around you. In writing this series the one thing that comes out to me is that the person that God uses is a man/woman of character. We are born with a personality, but character is something that is developed as we respond to the challenges that come our way daily.
I believe that Alfred the Great, whom I quote a lot, was right when he said, “Give me men/women that can fight, build and pray, and I will go out and build Western civilization.” God is building His Kingdom out of men and women with Christ-like character that will finish what God has given them to do, no matter what.
Will you be able to say what the Apostle Paul said at the end of his life? “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day — and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing.” 2 Timothy 4:7-8
Isaiah 64:4 “The ear has not had news of, nor the eye seen, what God has working for the man who is waiting for him. (BBE)
Remember that everything works out beautifully in Gods perfect time.