The Soul That Waits

Worship team.

Good singing this morning.

Too bad we can't sing Christmas carols every Sunday, don't you think?

Good to see you here.

Thanks for coming out in a North Dakota Sunday morning.

Many of you know that I'm not from North Dakota, and all last winter I was feeling cheated that I hadn't gotten a real North Dakota blizzard.

And we still haven't gotten a real one, I don't think.

But uh I got a little bit of a taste of it, and uh so thank you.

I feel very welcome, and you can blame it all on me.

That's uh quite all right.

All right, let me ask you to turn in your Bibles, if you would, please, to Psalm 130.

Psalm 130.

Let me read it, then we will pray, and then I'll try to help suggest how we should understand and then personally apply this particular portion of the scriptures.

So I'm reading from Psalm 130, reading from the ESV.

A song of assents.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.

Oh Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy.

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, oh Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.

I wait for the Lord.

My soul waits.

And in his word I hope.

My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchman waits for the morning, more than the watchman waits for the morning.

Oh Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is steadfast love.

With him is plentiful redemption, and he will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

The soul that waits.

This is a psalm for waiters.

How are you doing as a waiter?

I don't always do very well, and I'm not sure you do either, but let's pray.

Can we pray with us and ask that uh we might become good waiters?

Heavenly Father, uh, so often we cry out of the depths, even as the psalmist says.

We are in trouble.

Physical, spiritual circumstances.

We're often in trouble.

Oh Lord, would you help us to cry out to you?

Would you help us to wait, wait, wait, as the watchman waits for the morning, as the watchman waits for the morning, may our souls wait upon you.

And may we then be able to declare that our hope is in you, with you there is steadfast love and there is plentiful redemption.

You will redeem your people from all of our iniquities.

Oh Father, may this psalm somehow or another become a deeper reality in our lives.

I pray that your words, as revealed in Scripture, we would take with us, that they would be imprinted a bit deeper in our thinking.

And I pray you would help me to explain and apply this well.

Take my foolish words, and may your glorious word and truth come through it.

Give us an open heart, give us a mind that is receptive, give us ears that are willing to listen, and give us a soul that will learn to wait.

I pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

Well, I was thinking about this matter of uh of this text this morning, thinking about it this week, and a couple of things from years past, from my own childhood background and in our our own family as we raised them.

And I realized, you know, there's certain there's certain expressions that, at least in the Barrett family, um are recurring themes that our kids grew up hearing and grew up understanding.

In fact, we didn't give them much choice.

They they almost had to hear this if they were alive and awake.

One of them was something that was often said at mealtime.

Um our three kids, um, all three of them, um, it was rare that all three of them really wanted to eat what was set in front of them.

I don't know if that's true in your family.

Uh Lima beans was my downfall as a kid, but uh.

Anyway, our kids grew up with this phrase at mealtime.

You know, honey, you don't have to like it.

You just have to eat it.

You don't have to like it, you just have to eat it.

You know, there's an awful lot of life that is that way.

Awful lot of life.

Um the other phrase that came to my mind came from my own childhood, the family that I grew up in.

Had two older sisters, older, nasty, uh, oppressive sisters, at least that's the way it felt as a little boy.

Um, and uh I have a vivid memory of one hot summer day when we were on vacation, and my folks put the three of us in the back seat of the car.

This was the day before uh vans and things like that.

Back seat of the car, and of course, there was a definite turf battle uh that went on as we were sitting back there, and I had these two older sisters with elbows, and and I'm sure my sisters, if they remember it, they remember it quite differently, but they were being really nasty to me.

I was being oppressed, I didn't have enough space back there, and it was hot, and we were in the car, and we had a three-day journey before us.

No, this was in a 1954 two-tone tan and green Buick.

It was brand new.

Um, and that car, um, well, we took it on this trip.

Uh, we left from the western suburbs of Chicago where I grew up, and we were going to upstate New York.

This was, and I know some of you will find this hard to believe, before uh the interstates all were completed.

The interstate system uh was really just getting developed, and it took almost three days to get from the western suburbs of Chicago uh to upstate New York.

So we were shoved in the car, um, hot, no space, nasty sisters, and Walt was not a happy camper.

And I remember I think we couldn't have been more than an hour into the trip, which meant we hadn't even gotten into Indiana yet.

And I popped up over the back seat and I said, Daddy, are we there yet?

And my father said, Walt, be patient.

No, we're not there yet.

All good things come to those who wait.

Now, I was pretty sure that didn't apply to me, so certainly within another hour, I popped up over the back seat again and said, Daddy, are we there yet?

And the same response, Walt, be patient.

We're not there yet.

All good things come to those who wait.

And I suspect several times in the course of the first morning I heard this phrase, be patient, wait.

We're not there yet.

You know, I didn't like to hear that.

I didn't like to wait.

That was many years ago now, and I like to wait now about as much as I liked to wait then.

I'm not a good waiter, are you?

No.

No.

All good things come to those who wait.

Now, we could do an exegesis of that thought, not totally true, but spiritually, when God tells us to wait, uh, we can have confidence that God is doing some good things.

The problem is it just doesn't feel like it.

You don't have to like it, Walt, you just have to eat the lima beans.

You don't have to like that God says to wait.

You just have to wait.

Trusting in his goodness, knowing that he has good purposes.

It's okay, Walt.

No, you're not there yet.

We're on a journey where we're going through life, and we don't always get what we want, and it always doesn't happen when we want it.

And God says to us, just be patient, trust me, and wait.

Not very good at waiting.

As a people, we're not very good at waiting.

As human beings, we're not very good at waiting, and yet God says to us, I want you to be a waiter.

And he says, for example, in Isaiah 40, he says, Those who wait upon the Lord will gain new strength, they will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and will not faint.

And I want to walk without fainting, I want to run without getting weary, and I want to soar on wings like eagles, but I don't want to wait.

And it just doesn't work that way, my friends.

God says, wait.

He who waits upon the Lord, then there are these good outcomes.

And that's not the only place in Scripture that he talks about it.

So I believe that this psalm is a spiritual help for us as we journey through life and pop up over the back seat and say, Daddy, are we there yet?

And Daddy, our Heavenly Father, often says, No, we're not there yet.

You're not home yet.

Just wait.

Wait.

Wait.

The soul that waits.

Now, just a couple of thoughts by of general nature about this psalm, and then we'll we'll look through several of the verses.

We're not going to touch on all of it.

And then I want to suggest some thoughts about how we might apply this in practical ways.

So this is another one of the Psalms of Ascent, or the Psalms of Ascent.

The last two weeks we looked at some of the other Psalms in this mini book of Psalms within the Psalms.

So Psalm 120 to 134, a discrete unit within the book of Psalms called the Psalms of Ascent.

And as we've said, these were Psalms which the faithful in Israel used.

They sang, they spoke, they meditated on it during their three annual pilgrimages up to Zion, as they came from their villages in small groups, family and neighborhood groups, and they went up from the low-lying areas, up to the highlands, to the high point of Mount Zion, where the Temple Mount would be.

And they they used these.

These were used as a spiritual guide as they were journeying along.

And it would be my desire, my hope, that maybe having spent several weeks looking at some of these Psalms of Ascent, that we too might turn to them and allow them to guide us on our pilgrimage, on our journey.

We are not home yet, my friends.

This is not home.

This is not where we belong.

We must not settle down and think that this is our home.

This is a strange and foreign land.

We are east of Eden and very far from home, and we have been since Genesis 4.

East of Eden and very far from home.

Now we've talked about this.

Probably some of you are saying, Walt, would you please get on another theme?

But no.

This is a journey, and this is not where we belong.

Thankfully, there's some wonderful things here, but this is not our home.

And when we begin to settle down and think it's our home, we're wrong.

That's a worldly perspective.

God's perspective is you're just passing through.

And we have our eyes fixed on somewhere else, and that is our home.

And along the way, I at least say, Daddy, Daddy, am I almost there?

And God gently and patiently, as it were, well, gentle and patient, but it says, as it were, you know.

You're not home yet.

Have patience.

Just wait.

It's okay.

I'm good.

You can trust me as you wait.

That's what this psalm really is all about.

It also, in and of itself, although it's part of the psalms of ascent, there is an ascent, as it were, uh, figuratively, in this psalm.

Um the author starts out in the depths, starts out down, starts out deeply concerned about the circumstances of his life, and he cries out, he's down here in the muck and in the mire.

There's a lot of muck in life, isn't there?

A lot of stuff that happens.

A lot of stuff that hurts, stuff that's painful, stuff that hadn't ought to be, shouldn't ought to be this way.

And that's what we're often confronted with.

I have no idea where you're at in your life right now.

You may be on Mount Zion.

Um I know some of us are not exactly there yet.

And as we journey, we need to follow the progression of a psalm like this, where he starts out here, and then there's a second level of the psalm where he begins to reflect on who God is.

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, who could stand?

But there is forgiveness with you.

I'm waiting for you, my soul waits for you.

And you see what happens is we begin in the muck and we express that to God.

Are you comfortable saying to God, God, I don't like this, I'm confused, I don't understand, this isn't what I signed up for.

Life hurts.

I would encourage you to become comfortable with that.

The Psalms are filled with men and women of God who expressed at the beginning great concern and really complaint, and sometimes a complaint against God.

But that's not where they stay in the Psalms.

What happens is if we will allow God's word to nurture us, and if we're open and responsive to God, then something happens.

We begin to get a picture of something other than the muck that we're in, but the God who is behind all of that, and who is good, and who is trustworthy, and who is on the throne, he was last week, he is this week, and he ever more shall be.

We begin to get a grip on who God is and it lifts us somewhat from the circumstances we're in.

It gives perspective to the circumstances.

And then what happens in most of the psalms, this one being a good example of that, beginning in the mire, we get the perspective of God, and then something happens.

Then the psalmist turns to those around him and says, Oh Israel, hope in the Lord.

With the Lord there is steadfast love.

With him is plentiful redemption, he will redeem.

Now, what happens, what ought to happen, and we ought to encourage this to happen, and we ought to be prepared for it, is as we go through life where we're struggling in all kinds of areas, God begins to show us something of himself.

We gain a different perspective on it, but don't keep that to yourself.

Part of the purpose of the family of God is that we encourage one another.

Not just, oh, buck up, everything will be fine, the doctor's report is gonna be wonderful, you know, you'll it.

I mean, that's simply often not true.

The doctor's report is often not true.

And just to tell somebody, oh, it's all gonna be good, is really a lie, oftentimes.

But what we can begin to say is, wow, I am so, I'm so, I know it hurts.

I'm sorry.

I feel some of that.

When was the last time you wept with someone who was weeping?

When was the last time you wept?

Now I know men don't weep.

And I don't think North Dakotans weep very well.

At least they don't show it very much because you gotta keep it in and be strong.

Hmm, sorry.

Just makes a little harder for you.

There is a place to express the emotions of sorrow, both with the issues in our lives and the issues of others, but it doesn't stop there.

What we then can do, standing next to, sitting next to someone, begin to say, but God is good, God is faithful, God is involved, God understands, we can trust him.

Together we can trust him.

That ought to be part of what happens here in the family of faith.

If that's not part of our experience, then we have problems.

So there is in this psalm an ascent from the muck to being able to say to one another, out of our own experience, God's good.

We can trust Him.

And that is really something that we ought to be very attentive to ourselves.

What happens when God is working deeply and truly in your life and you're beginning to get a picture of it, or a fresh a picture, or a picture of it in another area of your life, what happens is that when we begin to talk that way, it doesn't just sound like superficial spiritual God talk.

But there's something of a reality.

When you're talking with somebody and they're really expressing what they've experienced with Christ, there's something that happens there.

There is a dynamic, there's a spiritual authority, and that's part of what the body of Christ is all about.

We need spiritual men and women who are anything but perfect, but are beyond the muck and the mire, at least for the time being, who can speak into our lives.

Let's trust God together.

God's good, He's faithful, He's trustworthy.

We pray together, we hug each other, we weep together, and we grow together.

That's what the body of Christ is supposed to be all about.

Well, uh two themes are found in this psalm that are interwoven.

We're only going to look at one of them.

First, uh, the one that we're gonna look at is the theme of waiting, hopefully waiting for God's intervention in the midst of the devastating circumstances of life.

Uh along with that theme, there is a parallel related theme in this psalm of waiting hopefully for God's intervention in the devastation of sin and the consequences of sin.

Uh that glorious uh picture that we got with the uh the reflection there, the excitement.

But hope in the restoration of our sins.

What I feel led to think about this morning is more hope in the certainty of the fact that as we wait on God, we may know that God is good and we may learn to wait in the midst of the devastation of our lives.

So let's just look at several of these verses.

I'm not going to try to touch on everything, but verse one.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.

Listen to what the verse one says: Out of the depths.

Now, don't just glance over or go quickly over that.

This is a profound and a phrase, the depths of the Lord, out of which we're crying, that we encounter many places through the Psalms and the prophets in particular.

It's a deep, powerful expression.

It is pregnant with meaning, and it's one that we ought to stop and think about for a moment.

It's used to describe the terror and trauma of a person who is caught in dangerous and deep waters.

Someone who is caught in dangerous and deep waters and fears he or she cannot get out.

Let me, I think I made a put a reference up here.

Yeah, Psalm 69.

Let me just turn to that or you turn to it if you would.

Psalm 69, here's a great way in which this same phrase that we find in Psalm 130, the depths, it helps us understand what he means by that.

So Psalm 69, verses 1 and 2.

Psalms 69:1

Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.

I sink in deep mire where there is no foothold.

I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.

That's kind of the imagery of the deep.

Out of the deep I call.

Verse 13 and following.

But as for me, verse 14, deliver me from sinking in the mire.

Let me be delivered from my enemies and from deep waters.

Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or a pit close its mouth over me.

These are pictures of someone who is in desperate situation, and they're expressing it, and they're crying out in the midst of that.

The waters are rising, and I'm in deep trouble.

I got thinking about an experience that one of my sons had a few years ago.

He was in law school, and he was doing an internship several years after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

And he was interviewing people who had been incarcerated.

They were in jail or prison during the flood.

And he told me several stories that he had heard from these former inmates that during the flood the waters came into the prison, came into their cells, and the waters began to rise in their cells, and they were locked in.

And what actually happened, fact, is the cells were controlled by electronic locks, and they were not working.

So the water began to rise, and the inmates started dog paddling, and before they knew it, the ceiling was getting closer and closer.

Can you imagine what terror would be involved in that?

Now, thankfully, uh somehow or another the water went down or the locks opened or whatever.

But what a picture.

You're trapped, you're not able to get out, and the water is rising.

That's the way he talks in Psalm 69, and that's the kind of thing he's talking about here.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.

Eugene Peterson in his paraphrase puts it this way: Help God, the bottom has fallen out of my life.

Have you ever had the bottom fall out of your life?

Where you were desperate and could only trust God?

That's a really good thing to have happen.

It's a really horrible thing, but a really good thing.

You can have nowhere else to turn, and all you can do is turn to God.

Just when you think you've hit bottom and you find that was a false bottom, and it keeps going deeper.

Have you ever gotten a phone call at three in the morning from someone who says, I am in desperate need?

I have.

One of my kids called me in the middle of the night once, and he was in desperate need.

And my heart just flip-flopped.

Have you ever made a call like that?

Have you ever had a situation in which you probably should have, but you didn't?

Desperate need.

If we only understood the reality of our situation, so often we would find that the water's getting up to our necks and we don't know what to do.

I guess what I would say on the basis of Scripture is don't wait until it gets that bad to call out.

Don't wait until it's all but overwhelming before you reach out.

This is the body of Christ.

We're supposed to be able to help each other.

Reach out to other people.

Reach out to God in the very first place.

And don't wait until it's all but overwhelming.

God encourages us to come to him.

He is an ever-present help in time of trouble.

Come to him.

Come to him.

Now is the day of salvation.

Come to him.

Now is the day in which God may want to work in your own life, be it in reference to your sins or be it in reference to circumstances in your life.

You can always go to God.

Why would we wait?

Why would we wait?

Either we don't believe He cares or we think He's impotent or something, all of which is a lie.

So we we allow the scriptures to give us an understanding of who God is.

And when we're desperate, we turn to Him.

So that's verse one.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.

And this is not abstract.

There would have been anguish in His voice.

There would have been probably tears in His eyes.

Just I can't hardly know what to say.

That's real.

Talk to God about that.

In fact, verse 2 says it's a request for God to be attentive.

Listen to what it says.

O Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy.

It is not wrong to ask God to pay attention to your situation.

To listen to your cries for help.

Why would that be wrong?

I wanted to, even though it pained me, I wanted to hear that cry from my son.

Because I love him and I care about him.

And why wouldn't God welcome your cry?

Be attentive to my pleas for mercy.

Attentive in this sense.

We don't often really use it this way.

The idea is someone attending to another.

Please attend to me, O God.

In the sense of, well, I guess a picture would be a physician, a physician who attends his or her patients.

Who is there, who is present, who is available, that the patients can go to, and the doctor is there.

Maybe a more powerful image for me is a two-year-old kid, my two-year-old kid.

It's been about 34 years since my two-year-old boys were two years old, but the picture of a child who is just thrashing back and forth, is feverish, hurts, has earaches which drive him nuts or pain somewhere or another, and just thrashing about and says, Mommy, daddy.

And mommy and daddy come.

And the reality is that in most cases, mommy and daddy can't do very much about it.

I didn't realize that when I was a little kid.

I realized that as a parent.

But there's just something about being there, and you put your arms around this kid, and you soothe its brows and you pat its back, and you're just there.

You're attending to him or her, and that makes a difference.

That is our God.

We can call upon him to be attentive to our pleas for help.

The difference is when my kids were sick, there wasn't much I could do except hold them and cry and weep and wish I could do a whole lot more than I could do.

But when God attends to us, it's the Lord of the universe who knows what he's doing and does what he wills, and what he will is always and only good.

It just doesn't feel that way.

But you know, I don't have to like it.

I just have to eat it.

I just have to deal with the fact that in a fallen, broken world I don't always get what I want.

But God is always there, and sooner or later, those who wait upon the Lord, all good things will come to, but maybe not right now.

And this is what the Psalm is all about.

It's not wrong.

It's totally appropriate to cry out for help.

You don't chastise your child who comes and says, It hurts.

Would you do something, Mobby?

God doesn't chastise us.

But it doesn't stop there.

It's where we begin.

Verses five and six.

Um beautiful picture, another word picture that is very powerful.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits.

Now the psalmist is beginning to talk to himself.

All right?

It's a good thing for us to do.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope.

So he's going to the right places.

He's going to the right places, he's going to God, he's going to the word, what he knows about God, how God has revealed himself.

And then he says, verse 6, I love this.

My soul waits for the Lord.

What does that look like?

More than the watchman waits for the morning.

More than the watchman waits for the morning.

A beautiful picture out of the culture and day in which this was written.

The picture here is a sentinel or a watchman over a city at night.

A city that may have had walls, uh, may not have had walls, but it certainly had enemies round about.

And especially at night, a sentinel or sentinels would be placed.

And that's what is being expressed here, that I'm going to be like that sentinel up there who watches and waits.

And though it's not morning yet, I wait for the morning.

As a watchman waits for the morning, so my soul waits for you, O Lord, as a watchman waits for the morning.

Eager anticipation of the dawn, but the dawn is not here yet.

There were three night watches for the nation Israel.

Three, I think it was four-hour shifts.

It was the second shift that was so hard.

Second shift.

First shift might have started when it was just getting dusk and everyone was fresh.

And the third shift, morning is almost here.

I can see the dawn, but that middle shift, it's dark and it's dangerous, and there's all kinds of things out there.

Um and the night is dark, it's frightening.

Morning's coming, but it's not here yet.

And so, little boy popping up over the back seat, and Daddy, are we here yet?

No, son.

Just wait.

Just wait.

And as a watchman waits for the morning, a great deal of our spiritual lives ought to be this kind of experience, because it doesn't happen just like that.

That's not the spiritual life.

It's a journey in dark and dangerous places, and we're not home yet.

So we wait as a watchman with yearning and uh a plaintive cry.

Uh Psalm 63 says, On my bed I remember you, I think of you through the watches of the night.

Psalm 119.

I rise before dawn and cry for your help.

I have put my hope in your word.

I wait for dawn, I put my hope in your word, my eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises.

So there's this sense of anxiety, a plaintive, melancholy yearning that is expressed to God.

Do you know anything about that in your walk with God?

That ought to be a part of our lives.

That's why it's here.

This is to be a guide for us spiritually.

There is a place for that.

Yes, even for men.

Yes, even for North Dakotans.

And I say that with all love.

I just I'm really not trying to be on your case.

It's just, you know, we need to get outside of ourselves.

This is the way a believer learns to respond to God as a watchman waits for the morning.

Um have you ever spent long evenings in the ICU unit of a hospital when you're the one in bed?

I have.

Boy, the night is long.

The subdued lighting gets pretty quiet.

Um every once in a while somebody comes through and mops the floor.

I don't know why they do that, disturbing my sleep at night.

But that night is long.

You know what the clock does?

It goes.

It's amazing how slow time goes by when you're in the bed at an ICU unit.

Have you ever waited in the waiting room when someone you love is in the ICU unit?

Three in the morning.

It's very, very long.

That's what's expressed here.

More than the watchman waits for the morning.

Well, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting.

It's something the scriptures are filled with.

Uh let me just read you some examples of parallel thoughts within scripture.

I want you to get this is something that is a normal part of the life of someone who is walking with God.

It's a normal part.

The Spirit of God says in the Word of God, Psalm 5, verse 3, in the morning I lay my request before you, and I wait in eager anticipation.

Psalms 5:3

Psalm 27, verse 14, wait for the Lord.

Psalms 27:14

Wait for the Lord.

Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

See, I just want to skip over these verses.

God doesn't want us to.

Psalm 33, verse 20, we wait in hope for the Lord.

Psalms 33:20

He is our help and our shield.

In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in him.

May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope for you.

We wait in hope for you, O Lord.

Psalm 37, verse 7, be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.

Psalms 37:7

Don't fret yourself.

Psalm 38, verse 15, For you, O Lord, do I wait.

Psalms 38:15

It is you, O Lord, who will answer.

Isaiah 26, verses 8 and 9, we wait for you, you, the desire of our hearts, that day spring that was referred to.

Isaiah 26:8

Isaiah 30, verse 18.

Isaiah 30:18

The Lord longs to be gracious to you.

He rises to show you compassion.

Blessed are those who wait for him.

Isaiah 64, verse 4, God acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

Isaiah 64:4

God acts for those who wait for him.

Lamentations 3, 25.

The Lord is wonderful and good to those who wait for him and seek him.

So it is good to wait quietly for the Lord.

It's good for the young to submit to the yoke of his discipline.

Waiting is described here as the yoke of discipline.

Well described.

Micah.

Alright.

What do I do with that?

Let me just share some thoughts of how I seek to apply it, what's meaningful for me, and maybe it will be helpful for you, maybe not.

But uh, here's some suggestions of of what this means for me in practice.

Um I don't like any of these, parenthetically.

Waiting reminds me that I'm not in control.

And that's a very good thing.

Both that I'm not in control and that I'm reminded of that.

You see, we have this inborn, irrational, uh, thoroughly mistaken idea that we really have a significant amount of control over our lives.

We kid ourselves until something happens.

And we do have some measure of control, but so much of life happens to us, and we don't get to choose, and we don't get to change what happens.

Um I have an irrational, totally ludicrous, arrogant assumption, for example, that I ought to be able to get into the front seat of the car behind the wheels, put the key in the ignition, or push the button, and the car ought to start.

Isn't that silly?

Why in the world would I think that if I get in the car, I put the key on, and the car doesn't start, that somehow or another something awful has happened to me as though I have a right to have the car start?

Who do I think I am?

I'm sure you have no such irrational, arrogant assumptions.

I'm sure you do.

See, we're not in control.

And I don't like to wait.

I do not like to wait.

Um I, in a in a former church where I served, we had a monthly newsletter, and one of the things that we did in the newsletter was to interview a family.

And it was always interesting to see what people said.

And for example, we would ask a question, what's one of your favorite quotes?

And then the adults and the kids would all give their answer.

And it was one family, three kids, twin boys, wasn't our family.

Um, and one of the boys quoted uh Romans 8.28, and I thought, yeah, right.

Or maybe, yeah, right.

Wow, pretty good.

But Anna, little three-year-old Anna, you know what her favorite quote is?

You don't always get what you want.

You don't always get what you want.

Little three-year-old Anna, bless her soul.

Wow.

Go, Anna.

Go, parents, that are helping a three-year-old understand you don't always get what you want.

That's a life lesson.

And the reason we don't always get what we want is we're not in control.

And knowing that is an incredibly good thing.

And waiting can be a spiritual discipline.

A spiritual discipline.

I don't know if you have spiritual disciplines of prayer or Bible reading or prayer and fasting or journaling or whatever.

Let me suggest to you that there is a great precedent for the spiritual discipline of waiting.

Is it possible that we could learn spiritual discipline instead of grousing and complaining?

We could just say, Lord, you know what you're doing, you're on the throne, I'm not, and I'm so thankful for that.

And I will wait as the watchman waits for the morning.

Second thought, pretty simple, pretty convicting.

When I have a problem waiting, I sooner or later realize that it's usually a problem of faith.

Faith, hope, and waiting are intimately tied together.

In fact, Hebrews chapter 11, the chapter on faith, with all of these examples of heroes of the faith, you study that chapter and you will find that why they were included there, they were illustrations of people who were trusting God despite what they saw around them and were not yet in possession of that which was promised.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

They were waiting and looking forward and anticipating something that had not yet been fulfilled.

That's faith.

That's hope.

Hope is the faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

If we see it, we don't have to have faith.

We wait in faith for that which we do not see.

Hope and faith are all tied together.

And so when when I'm all tied up in a knot, frustrated because I can't get what I want when I want it, then ultimately it's a faith problem.

At least it is for me.

Maybe it's not for you, but it is for me.

And I have to deal with that.

Waiting is a gift of God to help us.

Why would God have us wait if there wasn't a good purpose in our lives?

I have come to try my best, and sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don't, to see situations when I desperately want something and I don't have it, and I even think it's what God wants, but it's not here yet, to say, thank you, Lord, for giving me a gift.

Just as suffering, I believe, can be a gift from the Lord for our good and for his glory, so also waiting can be a gift from God for our good and his glory.

If you're not waiting, you are probably not trusting.

Final thought.

Don't leave the waiting room.

Real simple.

Don't reject it.

Don't walk away from the waiting room when God has wonderfully, graciously, for your good and for his glory, arranged all of these circumstances.

Don't run away from it.

We already said God acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

Sometimes I encounter people who wonder why they don't experience the reality and the power of God in their lives, and I don't have a perfect or complete answer to that.

There's many reasons why, and I'm not big enough to be able to figure it all out.

But sometimes, at least in my life, sometimes when I'm not experiencing God in certain situations, it may be that I'm not willing to wait.

So I try to make things happen and bear the consequences for it.

Those who wait upon the Lord will gain new strength, will soar on like wings of eagles, run and not grow wary, walk and not be fate.

Big, important and impressive people apparently never have to wait.

Have you noticed that?

My one of my other sons, uh the other son, um, in college worked in Indianapolis in the Cheesecake Factory.

I don't know if you're familiar with that restaurant.

I haven't seen one in Grand Forks, but they're really trendy restaurants, very uh expensive for what you get as far as I'm concerned.

But you wait an hour and a half to get in there.

We've done it several times.

Why in the world?

I have no idea.

But what I've noticed is at the Cheesecake Factory in Indianapolis, none of the top players of the Pacers or the Colts have to wait in line.

They go directly to the front of the line.

Big impressive people.

They don't have to wait.

God is not interested in big impressive people.

We have to wait.

Don't have to like it, just have to deal with it.

And then trust God for his good purposes.

Let me close with a story about a friend of mine, or a former friend of mine.

He died a few years ago.

His name was Michael.

And we worked together for many years in Belgium and uh for a while in Ireland as well.

Um Michael was a gifted musician and a gifted evangelist.

He was a missionary.

We worked together.

Uh he was often on stage, spoke, and played for crowds of thousands in all kinds of amazing places around the world.

And at a point in time, Michael contracted a devastating and very rare disease of the brainstem.

And over a five-year period he died.

And during that time, Michael, who once had been a musician and a performer and a man on stage, couldn't even stand and hardly speak.

Towards the end of that long waiting period, he wrote the following email.

I admit I wrestle with feelings of being abandoned with this condition.

Boy, do I get that.

Some of you do as well.

God, where are you?

I see pictures of people I used to minister with in faraway places.

I remember opportunities I've had in the past to speak and preach, and I've had to admit to myself these days, or those days and those skills are long gone, forever, permanently.

I can hardly stand up or talk above a whisper.

But God continues his work on me all the same.

In truth, I have not been set aside.

It has forced my faith to grow.

I have had to trust God like never before, and he knows exactly what he is doing through it, and he doesn't seem in any way to me to make sense.

It does not make sense to me, but he knows exactly what he is doing.

The one who made the lush garden is also the one who made the desert, said Michael.

The one who made the lush garden, that's where I want to be, is also the one who put him in a desert phase of his life.

And we have to trust him in that he knows how to get us out, how to get the most out of his this, his creation.

I therefore have to believe that he absolutely knows how to get the most out of my life.

Blessings, Michael.

Michael was always a good man.

The best years of Michael's life were his last years.

More full of faith, more powerful, more influential over other people, including myself, to watch a man walk a walk of faith in a situation like that.

God does good and amazing things.

Don't leave the waiting room.

Call out from the depths.

God hears your voice.

He's involved.

He knows what he's doing.

What he's doing is good.

He does only and always what he pleases, and what he pleases is always and only good.

That's who our God is, and we can trust him.

Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength.

How are you doing with your assignment as a waiter?

Let's pray together.

Let me just ask you to stand and I'll pray and we'll be dismissed.

Heavenly Father, I thank you that you have revealed yourself in Scripture, and I thank you that this psalmist spoke this truth, and you guided him to write it down for our spiritual benefit.

Precisely what you wanted him to say, and precisely what we need.

A miracle of inspiration.

Father, I pray for myself as I pray for my friends and brothers and sisters here.

May we be good waiters.

May we just trust you.

As a watchman waits for the morning, O my soul, I wait for you, O God.

And I will declare among your people that you are good, even when it makes no sense to me.

Father, may that be our experience.

We need that.

Help us this week, today, in our own life situation, may we be good waiters for Christ's glory.

Amen.

You're dismissed.