Sunday: The Call of Waiting
Daily Lesson for Sunday 24th of March 2024
Read Psalms 27:14; Psalms 37:7,9,34; Psalms 39:7; Psalms 40:1; Psalms 69:6; Galatians 5:5; and Romans 8:18-25. What do these texts implore God’s people to do?
Perhaps one of the greatest stresses in life is the stress of waiting. No matter who we are, where we live, what our station in life is, we all at times must wait for things. From waiting in line in a store to waiting to hear a medical prognosis, we wait—which we don’t always like doing, do we?
mage © Bjorn Thorkelson from GoodSalt.com
What, then, about waiting for God? The notion of waiting on the Lord is found not only in the Psalms but abounds all through the Bible. The operative word in all this is perseverance. Perseverance is our supreme commitment of refusing to succumb to fear of disappointment that somehow God will not come through for us. God’s devoted child waits, knowing with certainty that God is faithful and those who wait on Him can trust that if we leave our situation to Him, we can be sure that He will work it out for our best, even if at the time we don’t necessarily see it that way.
Waiting on the Lord is more than just hanging on. It is a deep longing for God that is compared to intense thirst in a dry land (Psalms 63:1). The psalmist waits on many blessings from God, but his yearning to be brought close to his God surpasses any other desire and need in life.
As we read in Paul, in this amazing passage in Romans, God and the whole creation are waiting for the renewal of the world and the blessed meeting of God and His people at the end of time. He writes: “For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19, NKJV).
What an incredible promise!
Yet, while we are waiting for the ultimate salvation and reunion with God, even as “the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs” (Romans 8:22, NKJV), the Lord still abides with His people now, through the Holy Spirit.
Meanwhile, we are called to bear witness (Acts 1:4-8) to the plan of salvation, which will culminate in a new creation. That new creation is, ultimately, what we are waiting for, the final fulfillment of our hopes as Adventist Christians, whose very name, Adventist, contains the idea of the hope that we await. We wait, but we know that it’s not in vain. Christ’s death and resurrection, at the first coming, is our surety of His second coming.
What are some things you are waiting for now from God? How do we learn to wait in faith and in trust, especially when what we are praying for hasn’t yet come?
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We don't like waiting. I had an iMac computer. It was a bit long in the tooth (old - for those who don't understand metaphors) I used it to denoise my photographs. The process took about 90 seconds for a full-sized photograph and I would sit there drumming my fingers on the desk waiting for it to finish. It was a pain; the only mitigation was that the Denoise program did a good job! Then my iMac died and I bought a new Macbook Pro with 12 CPU and 18 GPU cores and a 16 core neural engine. Wow! Denoise now takes 10 seconds and I don't even have time to think about waiting.
Speed is a selling point for most consumer goods these days. While it is great to go to the freezer and get a couple of slices of precut bread, pop them in the microwave for 10 seconds, and have a sandwich ready to go in another 30 seconds, we lose something in the process. How many of us take the time to mix our own dough, knead it by hand for 20 minutes, let it rise for one and a half hours, knock it down, shape it, let it rise again and then bake it in an oven for 45 minutes? Then you have to let it cool for at least an hour before you can slice it and eat it. But, in the process, your whole house fills with the aroma of baking bread. That does not come from a microwaved slice.
Waiting on the Lord, is not about testing your patience because God is moving too slowly for us. It is our chance to show the joy of slow-cooked Christianity.
The psalmist knew what he was talking about.
That was lovely to read Clarris, I am also looking forward to that day.
Thank You Jesus.
"Waiting on the Lord, is not about testing your patience because God is moving too slowly for us. It is our chance to show the joy of slow-cooked Christianity.
O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. Psalm 34:8"
Thanks for your comments. I enjoy reading them, and I am blessed by them.
Here goes my attempt at a Psalm:
There is coming a day, how I long for it,
When the words, diagnosis, tests, scan, X-ray, prognosis
Shall be a thing of the past
When the words incurable, best-case scenario, symptom management
Shall be irrelevant
There is coming a day, how I long for it,
When the words condolences, sympathy, heartbroken
Shall be a thing of the past
When the words funeral, tears, gravesite, tombstone
Shall be irrelevant
There is coming a day, how I long for it,
When the words waiting, longing, yearning
Shall be a thing of the past
When the words unfulfilled, failed plans, hopeless
Shall be irrelevant
There is coming a day, how I long for it,
When the wondering shall cease
When we shall not have to imagine anymore
For we shall be there, seeing it, living it
There is coming a day, how I long for it
When we shall see Him face to face
When we shall receive all we have been promised
When we shall start our new lives, our eternal lives
There is coming a day, how I long for it.
Amen my sister. There is coming that day; soon and very soon. God bless pray me as I pray for you.
Ok how I love your Psalm. With your permission I will share it with my sabbathschool members❤️❤️🙏🏽🙏🏽
Of course Carla, you are very welcome to share it.
I thank the Lord.
As I studied this lesson I kept hearing this beautiful song in my head. I've sung it many times with choirs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taoRYOKFN7Y
While we are waiting on God to answer our prayers, are we inadvertently preventing Him from answering those prayers by our actions (lack of faith, acts of disobedience, unforgiving spirit, etc.)?
David was anointed to be king at the age of 15 but he had to wait another 15 years to be crowned King of Judah. in that 15 years he suffered just about every kind of affliction known to man. He was afflicted physically; he had known danger, hunger, and privation, when he was hunted like an animal by Saul and his army. He had also known sickness, if Psa. 38:5-11 and 77:2 are to be taken literally.
So when he says Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him: Because God has promised to faithfully take care of those who put their trust in Him, we can rest in the LORD. We can wait patiently for Him instead of fretting and fearing that God has forgotten us or intends evil for us.
Waiting is hard! I am in a season of making a decision that may force me to wait on God for everything. And it’s scary! Today’s lesson is encouraging us to wait, but my brain is programmed differently.
Here’s what I know though, when we wait on God it improves our character. Waiting makes us more patient, slow to react and humble. It even helps us with delayed gratification, which is a big problem in our culture (for me too).
I hope someone will be encouraged by this lesson. I pray that God will give us strength to trust and believe in him as we learn to wait this year!
Persistence is the keyword for today's study. How am I dealing with things that have yet to happen? Am I being patient and persistent? Or have I given up on specific goals? When I persisted in waiting on the Lord for things I craved but could not achieve, the result was much better than I imagined.
I love the King James version of Psalm 27:14, there it says not only to wait but also to do so with "Courage." It also says that when we do this, then God will also add "Strength" to our hearts.
Today we are waiting in the Psalmist terms, simular to our terms, they were waiting, sustaining, and serving till He appears. The Psalmist though were waiting for the appearance of our Messiah for the 1st time. We are waiting for His second glorious coming as King of kings and Lord of lords. Obvious to some and not so obvious to others.
I, too, thank the Lord we have the Psalms. And am thankful that the Psalmist knew and were inspired by the Holy Spirit. 🙏
We don't even have to hope we will remain faithful. By the grace of God we will remain faithful. What is the grace of God in this instance. By abiding in Him we are promised the power to remain faithful to Him.
John 15:5.
Luke 21:19. NIV
2 Timothy 1:7-8.
Philippians 2:13.
The author picked a good Psalm to depict waiting for our Lord. It applys to old generations as well as current generations.
Psalm 63:1.
During my spiritual journey with my heavenly Father, Isaiah 40:28-31 became one of my favorite passages. I’ll just use the words Isaiah received from the Lord of Israel for their encouragement:
”Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding.
He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.”
His Word remains forever comforting and reassuring to those who wait upon His loving Providence!
I stayed for 12 years after graduation before getting employed ,I never sought for any connections and finally God did it for me.Its so sweet to trust in Jesus..
While we wait for our Lord and Savior - whether for Him to answer our prayers and longings, or for Him to show in the clouds of heaven for His Second Coming, always keep in mind:
"DELAY is not DENIAL in God's waiting room."
God's delay means a responsibility/duty for every faithful servants to go and spread of God's goodness to allow others to join the long lasting patience of God.
It is not a matter of just waiting for the, but to patiently wait for Him to fulfill His promises to us. Amen
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As we wait for God; we do so through waiting on God. Waiting for is the vision while waiting on is the mission to achieve the vision. Happy Sabbath