Christmas - A Reminder to Wait & Worship




Read Psalm 62. 

I'll wait. 


Waiting. What a horrible curse word in our Western mindset. No one wants to wait, to experience delayed gratification. Eww. The state of awkwardness that comes while waiting for something leaves us hanging in the balance between patience and impatience, thankfulness and grumbling. More Eww. 

Waiting. Taking a pause to trust in another's timing for the outcome. 

Waiting. It's a worship muscle that for the Jesus follower must be worked out, developed, exercised. 

Waiting. Cannot be separated from trust. It builds our stance. Because God is faithful, I can wait. Without waiting, we become fragile in our faith, our trust in God. Every small gust of suffering that blows our direction topples us over. Our pain threshold becomes low. 

Waiting. It builds endurance to brace ourselves and trust when answers don't come quickly or when deliverance isn't instantaneous. 

Waiting. Divides. Reveals hearts - true believers and faithless believers. Will you stay faithful while you wait? Will you stay trusting? Will you abandon trusting God when His answers don't come?

Psalm 62 is all about waiting. Psalm 62 is all about worshiping in the waiting. 

           "For God alone my soul waits in silence; from Him comes my salvation.

            He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken." 

The author of this Psalm sounds like he's in a tough situation, waiting on God to intervene. And in the middle of the waiting, he/she wrote this expression of worship declaring that God alone is able to save them, able to keep them, God alone is able to be trusted and to maintain their stability in shaking times. Power belongs to God alone (vs 11), steadfast love is God's alone (vs 12). Waiting puts us alone in the ring with God...wrestling our faith muscles, our gratitude muscles...wrestling, exercising our muscles of releasing control, letting go, practicing patience and embracing dependency. 

Christmas is a reminder of the importance of waiting. Yes, Jesus came. It was the beginning of Him coming again. The already and not yet collision. He is here. He is coming. It is finished. It will be more finished. Hope is here. Hope grows as His return hangs over us  - He will restore all things to right. 

Maybe this season finds you waiting on healing from a chronic ailment. Maybe this season finds you waiting for a spouse, a child. Maybe this season finds you hoping for your child to return to Jesus. Maybe this season you're waiting for a new job, a new house, a new opportunity. Maybe you're stuck waiting in the Telegraph Road McDonald's line while your kids are fighting in the backseat and you just can't understand why IT TAKES SO LONG TO MAKE FRENCH FRIES (Come on! Where my peeps at??! HAHA!)!!!! 

Waiting. Wait. Embrace the wait. It's Jesus' hug...worship in the embrace. Slow down. Breathe in...God is good. Breathe out...God is for me. Repeat. He's here. He's coming and He'll be more here. 

            "Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.

                                                       ~Selah"               Psalm 62:8

Merry Christmas! 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pride in Identity

Image
It 's "pride" month.  So...I've been spending every day this month so far looking at what God's Word says about "pride," reminding myself of His truth. The Bible has much to say about pride. Not one of those things is positive. The Jesus-follower has no room for pride, should have no place in it, no connection at all. So to have an entire month out of our year devoted to "pride," setting aside what this month boasts of even, is mind boggling to see any Jesus believer supporting it. The basis of "Pride Month" is the celebration of self, celebration of the identity one embraces. Self is exalted above the good of any other person or being. Self is worshiped. This is the core of pride, all pride. Self worship over God worship.  I'm thinking much about our culture, as I'm sure most of you are, too. I'm thinking of it's direction. I'm thinking of how worldly and unwise it is in its pursuits and thinking. The surface self
Read more

Clear Glass, Stained Glass: Worship God vs Worshiping Worship

Image
  A few weeks ago, I was working on my Bible study and the lesson referenced a story from Numbers 21 that made me feel confused, honestly. It's a story about the Israelites who had yet again grown impatient with God and crabby about the food He was giving them and well, just plain mad about their deliverance wilderness experience! So, God, in response to their faithlessness in His promise to provide, protect and deliver, sent "fiery snakes (vs 6) among the camp and they bit the people, and many died. This caused a wave of repentance among the Israelites. They took responsibility and stopped the complaining. And so, God instructed Moses to make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole and anyone who looked at it would be healed and live.  This was confusing to me.  So, I dug in and began to look at what this snake on a pole was all about. The snake on a pole wasn't magical, so what was its significance? I found it mentioned again in the book of 2 Kings 18 where, many years late
Read more

What to Do When You Don't Know What to Do...

Image
"We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You."  2 Chronicles 20:12, this verse that comes in the middle of the unknown, the fear, the grasping at straws for the next move. This verse that is uttered out of the mouth of King Jehoshaphat, who's country is on the brink of war, outnumbered by a pagan, demonized military advancement. The Moabites and Ammonites had encamped around Judah. They set up camp as a military strategy. As they camped, they slowly moved into Judah, with all of their pagan practices and worship of other guys. Their strategy was to cause the Israelites to slowly compromise their commitment to God, the one true God. As they moved in, Judah was pushed to shift and lower standards to accommodate pagan standards. They were pushed to comply with the world - it's points of view, it's way of living, it's way of worship, it's fearful/human response to life in general. To comply. To panic.  In the middle of this comes 2 Chronicles 20:12. &qu
Read more