Secret to Waiting on God
by G. Campbell Morgan
Far from of old they have not heard nor perceived by ear, neither has the eye seen a God besides Thee, Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him — Isaiah 64:4
Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him — 1 Corinthians 2:9The similarity of those two verses is evident. The Hebrew prophet Isaiah emphasized the marvelous God Who works for those that wait for Him. The apostle Paul placed the emphasis not upon God, but on the marvelous things which God does for them that love Him. G. C. Morgan wove those two ideas into one statement: "Our God is marvelous in that He does marvelous things for those who wait for Him because they love Him." We fall flat on our faces when we try to manage without Him. Morgan continues,
In the hour of darkness and difficulty the true attitude of those who believe in God is that of waiting on Him. The only strength sufficient to enable men to wait for God is that of love to Him. . . .
Waiting for God is not laziness. Waiting for God is not going to sleep. Waiting for God is not the abandonment of effort. Waiting for God means first activity under command; second, readiness for any new command that may come; third, the ability to do nothing until the command is given.
The Hebrew word translated "waiting" . . . has affinity with a word that means "to entrench." God works for him that entrenches himself in Him. The idea of waiting for God here is that of digging ourselves in to God.
Waiting for God, then, is the adjustment of our lives to the truth concerning Him which we know. . . . God is the one unchanging fact from everlasting to everlasting. Waiting for God means putting this life, of which I am so uncertain in a thousand varied ways, into right relationship with Him of whom I am absolutely and everlastingly certain. Waiting for God means that I adjust my life to Him rather than to circumstances, and that I set my hope on Him rather than on the wit and the cleverness of men. Waiting for God means that definite personal activity which is busily occupied in adjusting the whole fact and circumstances of life to the unchangeable and unalterable fact of God.
Waiting for God means, therefore, readiness for any command; that state of perpetual suspense which listens for the word in order that it may be immediately obeyed. Those who wait for God are pilgrim souls that have no tie that will hold them when the definite command is issued; no prejudices that will paralyze their effort when in some strange coming of the light they are commanded to take a pathway entirely different to that which was theirs before; having no interests either temporal or eternal, either material or mental or spiritual, that will conflict with the will of God when that will is made known. Souls who wait for God are such as have their loins girt about, their lamps burning; they are alert, awake, ready.
Waiting for God, then, means power to do nothing save under command. This is not lack of power to do anything. Waiting for God needs strength rather than weakness. It is the power to do nothing. It is the strength that holds strength in check. It is the strength that prevents the blundering activity which is entirely false and will make the true activity impossible when the definite command comes.
Waiting is far more difficult than working. . . . Waiting requires strength. It demands absolute surrender of the life to God, the confession that we are at the end of our own understanding of things, the confession that we really do not see our way and do not know the way. The waiting that says: "Until God shall speak we dare not move and will not move, we will not be seduced from our resolution to wait"; requires strength.
(The Westminster Pulpit, vol. ix, pp. 318-323)