I came across quite a few blogs I didn't get round to posting, so over the coming coming days I'll post as many as I can and hope they bless anyone who reads.
Wait on the Lord, be of good courage and he will strengthen your heart, wait I say, on the Lord (Psalm 27:14)
There are lots of biblical references to waiting on the Lord and in life there are many things we have to wait for.
I had to learn to wait on the Lord when my grandson was taken into hospital as a youngster.
I had to wait to see if his temperature had returned to normal.
I had to wait to see if he had meningitis or if he had just a virus.
I had to wait for news while doctors decided whether to do a lumbar puncture and head scan and
I had to wait on the Lord to see him answer mine and many others' prayers as we were told it was his adenoids that had caused the problems.
In all of this I began to see that waiting wasn't simply just expecting something to happen, it was much more than that, there had to be an action on my part.
There are many instances in the bible of 'waiting'.
In Genesis 8 I found that Noah waited. The Lord had told him to build an ark, had given him instructions on how to build it and instructions on how it was to be filled with animals of every kind.
Noah then had to wait for the rains to come and then wait for the waters to subside. In all this time of Noah waiting the thing that struck me most was .... Noah TRUSTED. It wasn't just about the waiting, it was trusting the Lord, he had to continually trust the Lord. He trusted the instructions the Lord gave him, trusted Him to keep him and his family safe, trusted when the Lord said he would establish a covenant with him and trusted He would not destroy the earth again when the Lord said he would set his rainbow in the cloud.
I saw how we are meant to trust the Lord in all of our waiting. He has given us a blue print for the kind of person he wants us to be. In Jeremiah 29:11 it says
for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
As we wait and trust Him, the Lord has thoughts of peace for our life. In his grace and mercy, he thinks only good things of us, thinks of our wellbeing, plans to give us a future filled with hope, but we need to trust him as Noah did.
No matter how long it takes, no matter what it is whether difficulties, storms, trials or just leading our ordinary, everyday lives, we need to trust, to wait on the Lord, to be of good courage and he will strengthen us.
In Genesis 18 we read of someone else who waited. It would seem Sarah, after waiting so long, thought she was too old to conceive a child and in her long wait she took matters into her own hands when she came up with the plan to give Abraham a son through her maid Hagar, and Ishmael was born.
I wonder if Sarah ever regretted her plan because when she and Abraham were very old she was told she would give birth to a son. She laughed when she heard the news and despite seeming to doubt what God could do through her, Sarah is mentioned in Hebrews 11:11 where it says "through faith, Sarah herself received strength to conceive and bear a child even when she was past child bearing age because she judged him faithful who had promised". Sarah had faith in the Lord, sh trysted Him..
In Jeremiah 32:27 The word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah saying behold I am the Lord, the God of all flesh, is there anything too hard for me and
In Luke 1 when Mary is told her cousin Elizabeth was with child when she was barren, the angel says for with God nothing shall be impossible.
Sarah became somebody despite her old age, she became a mother despite her doubt about what God could do through her. She had faith and trusted in Him who said nothing was too hard for Him.
So what is it today that you think is too hard for God to do in your life. Nothing, absolutely nothing in your life is too hard for God, no matter what you think he can't do through you or in you.
I read somewhere that the Lord responds to faith even in the midst of failures, he isn't bound by anything and can cause unheard of events to happen.
Faith my friends can remove mountains, Jesus himself said so and if you wait upon the Lord, exercising your faith in Him, and trusting Him, then just look at what He might do in your life.
Sent from my iPad 14.7.15
