Follow Me: Waiting on the Lord

An old saying goes, “A watched pot never boils.” It can seem that way if we just stare and wait. This serves as a metaphor for greater life issues in which we wait patiently until our patience wears out and we walk away. We are done! Perhaps in so doing, even turning our backs on God.

Here’s another parallel concerning our spiritual journey with Jesus Christ as our guide. A young boy asked God, “What is 1,000 years like to you?” God replied, “It’s like a second in time.” The youth then asked, “What is 1,000 dollars like to you?” God patiently replied, “My son, it’s but like a penny.” The child thought he had put 2+2 together and went for the big question: “God, can I have one of your pennies?” God knowingly replied, “Absolutely, My son, but you will have to wait a second.”

This cute but poignant analogy helps in understanding what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ as we take up His invitation of “Follow Me” (Matthew 4:19; John 21:22). It illustrates the reality that our thoughts and ways are far different from our Creator’s (Isaiah 55:8-9). He operates in a totally different sphere from us yet knows the sparrow that falls to the ground—and still focuses so much more on those being molded in His image (Matthew 10:29-31).

A major undergirding of that spiritual development is coming to recognize and embrace that “waiting on the Lord” is not an elective but a main course in maturing as a disciple of Jesus Christ. This patient waiting is a spiritual exercise directly opposed to a world that wants everything right now. And it may be the greatest witness to others of our faithful surrender to our Master as we flex the spiritual muscle of patience beyond the moment that can seem unending.

“I will come to you”

Before going further, let’s note a twofold, rock-solid promise from Jesus to enable us to exercise the muscle of patience. It was made not only to His disciples on the night of His betrayal but for us today. John 14:18: “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” Immediately? No! It would take time, obedience and patience to personally grasp.

Jesus’ friends who would abandon Him that night had no glimmer of what would take place over the days and weeks to come. Imagine—His terrible death and then a resurrection, meeting them by appearing suddenly in a locked room and later seeing Him ascend to heaven—much less experiencing the unfathomable reality of having Him come to literally dwell within them as a “Helper” through the Holy Spirit (see John 14:26; 2 Corinthians 13:5). I would suggest they were humanly counting “seconds” rather than grasping what God’s perfection had in store.

This was further manifested just prior to Jesus’ ascension. The disciples were eager to hear that the restoration of the kingdom of Israel was imminent. The risen Christ replied, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority” (Acts 1:7). That is: Forget your personal time device. Get ready for “God’s seconds.” For now, they needed to “tarry [or wait] in . . . Jerusalem until . . . endued with power from on high”—or, as He told them here, “to wait for the Promise of the Father,” the gift of the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4). Imagine their inner angst about remaining in this dangerous place and world without Christ’s bodily presence among them.

Yet they pressed past any reservations and did as Jesus told them. Acts 1:12-13 places them in Jerusalem waiting in the upper room—praying together. No longer running for their lives as they had done weeks before in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus had stated, “You shall be witnesses to Me,” starting here in Jerusalem (verse 8). Their witness was not only a spoken message but a lived one in their practice of waiting on the Lord without looking to their self-made time devices. Rather than walking away from God, they stood fast!

The book of Acts presents them as faithful and expectant while patiently obedient in waiting on the Lord’s promises. Clearly, obedience and faith in “God’s seconds” would be the pathway to usefulness to our Master in gathering people, then and now, that would ultimately turn “the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). Yet they first needed to submit to God’s guidance towards turning themselves upside down and inside out before witnessing to others. Bottom line from the start: God gives His Spirit to those who obey Him (Acts 5:32).

Keys towards embracing God’s timing

So allow me to offer three keys to stop anxiously watching for life’s pots to boil and to instead focus our attention upward to “the Master of the seconds of eternity.”

1. Waiting involves knowing, trusting in and committing to a loving God who will answer at the right time and in the right way, His way, and never be late.

That ultimately, in “God’s seconds,” includes the period of waiting for the future coming of the Kingdom—with many of God’s faithful followers in the grave until then.

Isaiah 30:18 reveals: “Therefore the Lord will wait [He is waiting too!], that He may be gracious to you; and therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him.”

Jeremiah 29:11-13 further defines God’s active graciousness: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”

2. Waiting involves committing yourself to actively seeking God.

For every cause, there is an effect, and God does not operate in a vacuum (while Satan and self-will do).

Remember that there is nothing passive about waiting on God. Waiting and seeking Him go heart in hand. Note Proverbs 8:17, where the personification of godly wisdom declares, “I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently will find me.”

How might we define diligently seeking after God and His ways while waiting on Him? It means spending time in His Word in serious heartfelt thirst for direction for our lives from Above, and not staring alone in futility at life’s heating pots that never come to a simmer. It means earnestly seeking Him in prayer to hear a voice other than our own. It requires “calling time out” to examine and evaluate our priorities, values, motives and attitudes in life. Are they or are they not in alignment with God? Now that is worth your precious time to stare at while asking God to light His fire within you!

3. Waiting involves surrendering to God and committing ourselves with patient but vibrant expectancy regarding His timing.

Again, think of the disciples in Jerusalem.

Let’s conclude for now by contemplating the opening of Psalm 40—wisdom shared by an ancestor of the One who bids us, “Follow Me”:

“I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouth—praise to our God; many will see it and fear, and will trust in the Lord” (Psalm 40:1-3).

David by waiting on God was delivered. As the Life Application Study Bible notes on these verses, God lifted him from despair, placed him on solid ground, steadied him so as to move forward and inspired him with a new song of praise. Imagine: A new way (“new song”) of moving beyond the frustrations of the moment—no longer bitter but better—as we embrace the process of waiting on a God who, after all, is waiting for us.

I appreciate you taking a moment of your time to consider embracing “God’s seconds.”