Watching and Waiting

Our Daily Bread has some amazing devotionals and today's devotional really spoke to me and I just wanted to share it with you. 

Watching and Waiting

Isaiah 18:4 NIV

This is what the Lord says to me:

    “I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place,

like shimmering heat in the sunshine,

    like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

In Isaiah 18, it appears that the whole world is set to battle God’s people. Yet what is the response of the Almighty One? “I will take My rest, and I will look from My dwelling place” (v.4). His stillness may appear to have been an acceptance of the conspiracy against them. But it wasn’t. God’s response was His reminder that He acts in His timing—at just the right time according to His will.

I think of Jesus waiting 4 days while Lazarus lay in the grave (John 11:39). Was He unaware? Did He not care? Of course He cared! He was waiting for the right time to act and to teach the lessons He wanted to teach.

The Bible records God’s “delays,” many of which seem at the time to be inexplicable from our point of view. Yet every delay flows from the depths of His wisdom and love. If nothing else, delay, if we accept it, can produce the quieter virtues—humility, patience, endurance, and persistence—qualities that are often the last to be learned.

Are you in distress? Does the Lord seem distant and detached? He is not indifferent to your plight, nor is He unmoved by your pleas. He is waiting while His purposes are achieved. Then, at the right moment, He will intercede. God is never in a hurry, but He is always on time.

Turn not aside, discouraged one;

Stir up your gift, pursue your goal;

In God’s own time you’ll see Him work;

He’ll give you hope and lift your soul. —D. DeHaan

God is worth waiting for; His time is always best.

Blessings,

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