Last night was very cold and my rental car had a Texas license plate on it. It certainly wasn’t used to the cold I experienced in Big Springs, Ne!!! The electronic sensors must have decided to protest because all the warning lights on the car stayed on after the car started and told the car’s motor and transmission not to do their ‘thing’ and move the car. I was confused. When it failed to fix itself I also found myself becoming impatient! Can you relate to something like that at all or does that just happen to me? Actually, I find myself become impatient more often than I like!
I’ve even become impatient with God! After all, I put my ‘coins’ in the vending machine and nothing happened! Grrr! Then wouldn’t you know it, God brought this verse to my attention. Isaiah 30:18 (ESV) Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.
Yep! It says God has to wait on me!! Really?? I thought we humans were the ones always waiting on God but this says He is waiting on us. The context of the passage is not all that different from me and perhaps you as well. In the preceding verses, the people of Judah were being ‘rebellious’, essentially insisting on wanting things to go their way. They were so stubborn that their ears had gone into the selective hearing mode. Bottom line: They wanted God to bless them in their misguided state and determined not to accept anything from God except His blessing that would enable them to carry on with their plans.
But God is also Just, not only Merciful. So, His Just character forced Him to wait until His judgment had humbled them to the point they returned to Him, so He could “be gracious unto them”. If He didn’t wait for them to return, He would be like a parent giving their child what he/she wanted while they were rebelliously throwing a fit. That would only enable them to use that ugly routine again in order to get what they wanted!
Could it be that God is waiting on me and you until we stop trying to achieve something righteous with our own resourcefulness? I’ve learned in the last few years that God does far more in and through my life when I stop trying to control or push things through—even when what I may have been doing was not bad! I find it is certainly true… “blessed are all those who wait for Him”. I’ve been seeing the Holy Spirit make changes that ONLY He could make happen! I am truly humbled, most grateful and much more at peace. What is even greater is how waiting on Him has been changing me more into the likeness of our Lord.
Holy Spirit, would you please remind me earlier to get out of Your way and let You do what only You can do so the King of the Universe can be exalted above all.