Why we Need to Learn to Wait

     "In the morning, Lord, Your hear my voice;
               in the morning I lay my requests before You
               and wait expectantly."
                                       (Psalm 5:3)


We're good at bringing our requests to God. We're good at asking God for what we need or want. But we're not usually very good at waiting. Unlike the psalmist in Psalm 5:3, we want God to answer our prayers right away.

We don't wait well.

We look for the shortest line in the grocery store or at the gas pump because we don't want to wait anymore than we have to. We weave in and out of traffic because we don't want to wait to get to our destination. We put the phone on speaker and frantically try to get other things done while we're on hold because we don't want to wait and fee unproductive.

When we pray and have to wait for God's answer or wait to do something because He said to, we don't do that very well either. We get impatient with the wait.. We try to find some way to make it happen according to our timetable.

In all our impatience with waiting, I think we miss something important. When God tells us to wait, it's because He something in mind for us that we might not be able to see or understand yet.

The psalmist in Psalm 5:3 talks about waiting expectantly for God's answer to his requests. Waiting expectantly has a ring of being something active. It doesn't speak to the passivity we usually associate with waiting.

Waiting expectantly for God's answer speaks of looking for His answer. Our eyes are open. We're watching for what is going on - to see when God is at work and what He is doing.

It's not sitting back, doing nothing. It's actively looking for where God already is and doing what we already know we should be doing. Then, when the answer we've been waiting for from God comes, we're ready to do whatever the answer requires us to do.

That changes things for me. It's doesn't make me look forward to waiting, but it does make me dread the wait a bit less.

What are you currently waiting for God to answer?

How can you begin to wait expectantly?

Where do you already see God at work - even while you're waiting?