1I waited patiently for the LORD to help me,

and he turned to me and heard my cry.

2He lifted me out of the pit of despair,

out of the mud and the mire.

He set my feet on solid ground

and steadied me as I walked along.

3He has given me a new song to sing,

a hymn of praise to our God.

Many will see what he has done and be amazed.

They will put their trust in the LORD. (NLT)

Out on a pastoral visit one day, I saw a plaque over someone’s fireplace. It read, ‘Lord, grant me patience, but hurry!’ Tongue in cheek perhaps, but it expressed a certain truth about human nature. We are averse to waiting.

However, it came as a helpful insight to me when I discovered that the Bible speaks both of waiting on the Lord in prayer, and waiting for the Lord to act. We see this kind of waiting in David’s experience. This is how it is expressed in ‘The Message’:

I waited and waited and waited for God.

At last he looked; finally he listened.

He lifted me out of the ditch,

pulled me from deep mud.

He stood me up on a solid rock

to make sure I wouldn’t slip.

He taught me how to sing the latest God-song,

a praise-song to our God.

More and more people are seeing this:

they enter the mystery,

abandoning themselves to God.

When we ‘wait’ for God to act, rather than trying to make something happen ourselves, a watching world sees what God can do, and He gets the glory.

”When we rely upon organization, we get what organization can do; when we rely upon education, we get what education can do; when we rely upon eloquence, we get what eloquence can do. And so on. But when we rely upon prayer, we get what God can do.” A.C. Dixon

PRAYER: Lord God, as the world looks at the church, and at our individual lives, may people see your work and be drawn to you. In my life, Lord, be glorified. In our lives, Lord, be glorified…today