dhyana-the group

Presence and Waiting…the essence of waiting on God.

This meditation is excerpted from the book “Sacred Waiting,” by David Timms

Psalm 62:1-“My soul waits in silence for God only.”

Think of a waiter in a restaurant. He comes to your table, introduces himself, he might tell you what the specials are. He is being present for you, establishing a connection with you, putting you at ease. Then he proceeds to serve you. He brings you what you request.

Unfortunately we often seem to treat God as our waiter, instead of us being His! We come to Him in prayer, telling him everything we need and then we expect him to take care of our requests.

But the Bible clearly places the responsibility of waiting on us. Throughout Biblical history we see great examples of God’s people waiting and serving Him.

Noah: Genesis 8:13-“And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry. So he waited more than 600 years for God’s rainbow covenant!

Abraham: Genesis 12:2-4- “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.”

Genesis 21:5-“And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him.” Imagine getting older and older…watching your wife get older and older…and still be waiting for God to fulfill this promise.

Moses: So he kills the Egyptian supervisor and flees into the desert to Midian, where he lived with the family of Jethro, the priest of Midian. He married Zipporah tended the his father-in-law’s flock. In Exodus 3:10, God said “Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharoah, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.” It’s been something like 40 years since Moses left Egypt and went into exile.

David: He waited for more than a decade before he eventually became king of Israel.

Henri Nouwen says this about waiting: “For many people, waiting is an awful desert between where they are and where they want to go.”

Timms says, “Each (hero of faith) learned unique life-altering lessons as they waited on God…Noah learned endurance. Abraham grew in his trust of God. Moses emptied himself. David discovered new depths of worship.”

We will each have our own journey in waiting, too. And we’ll each experience different lessons as we wait.