God’s Waiting Room
This was the title of the message Sunday morning at my church:
God’s Waiting Room
I want to give you some of my notes from the sermon because I feel like it applies to all of us at some point in our lives. Aren’t we almost always looking for that next promise to come to fruition? I hope you get as much out of it as I did:
…Has God ever promised you something that hasn’t come to pass yet? What has the time of “waiting” done to you?
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5, ESV)
The phrase “the fullness of time” was defined for us: Fullness means the filling up of something that is empty until it is full. Time is a limited period or interval, as between two successive events.
Christ’s birth was a surprise to everyone. God had been preparing and prophesying of His coming since the old testament, but no one knew exactly when it would be. Everyone had been LOOKING for the Messiah, but when He finally came, it was a surprise!
In God’s waiting room, there are vital things that need to be learned and cannot be learned any other way then by waiting. In Jesus’ case, what needed to be learned was the enormity of sin and the hopelessness of eternity without a savior.
There was a sin (Adam and Eve) and there was a promise made by God, to bring a savior, and then there was a long, LONG wait. The waiting period is essential to learning things we don’t know that we don’t know! 🙂
So what is it you are waiting for? Has God promised you a baby? A new home? A husband? A job? Salvation for a friend or family member for which you’ve been praying, for what seems like decades?
What are you suppose to be doing in God’s waiting room?
1. Learn all that you can. The lessons are a whole lot more that just patience. If you’ve learned nothing in the waiting, except to be patient and wait, then you’ve likely prolonged the waiting.
2. Obey everything you already know to do. Don’t be surprised by an agonizingly long wait if you aren’t doing what you’ve already been told and taught to do. Hasn’t anyone every told you, when God tests you, if you fail, you don’t move on to the next thing. You keep taking that same test over and over and over until you finally get it! Are you still disobeying God in the area for which you’ve been praying? Are you still making those same financial choices and expecting God to somehow work a miracle now? Obedience is greater than sacrifice.
3. Remind God (and yourself) of His promises, but resist the urge to hypothesize about the path to achieving them. This step is to build your faith. Remind yourself, in your prayer time, of the promises God has made to you. If God wanted you to know anything beyond the very next step, He would have told you! His mercies are new every morning!
4. Grow up. Immaturity is why an heir is not given their inheritance. The Father waits until his child is mature enough to handle the full responsibility of his inheritance before he allows them to receive it. We judge time based on our watch or calendar, when often times God judges time based on our maturity.
5. Enjoy the journey. God’s waiting room is not intended to be punishment. The mercies of God are new every day. The journey can be just as enjoyable as the destination! If you live expecting to only get fulfillment from the mountain tops, then you’ll miss great joy and blessing in the valleys.
6. Don’t tap out or quit. When Jacob wrestled with God, he never gave up or “tapped out”. God is not trying to break you. Rather, He wants to mold you, train you, and teach you. It was all about a blessing. Jacob ultimately received God’s blessing because he refused to quit. And the Lord changed his name from Jacob to Israel, which means Prince of God.
Joshua 21:45 says, “Not one of the good promises which the Lord made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass.”
What are you doing in the waiting room?
~audrey