Last week, I mentioned that our passage from Isaiah 40 was one of my favorites. Today, let me tell you the story of why –

I’ve mentioned before that my father passed away of cancer when I was 15. It was colon cancer and it was a lengthy fight that brought my dad, who was once a linebacker for a semi-pro football team, to a mere shell of a man – nothing more than skin and bones. In addition to the obvious physical deteriation, the cancer and the drugs to treat it took a strong mental toll, making him often very angry and sometimes violent. It was an anguishing time and one that was tough physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I had times of anger and doubt with God and often, though I went to church, I didn’t really feel a passion for worship. I did continue to go to church and to participate as I could in the student ministry. One side note to parents out there – encourage your kids to be involved in our children’s and student ministries, even if it seems at times you need to force them to go. I am the man of God I am today because of them and, if it were completely up to me, I may not have been as active when I needed Christ the most. Anyway, I remember one morning, I don’t really remember the full of the lesson, but I do remember us reading this scripture:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:28-31

It spoke right to my heart! I was weary. I was weak. I needed the strength of God. I reread it again to see what I needed to do to get it – wait. Just wait.

Last week I said to endure trials we need to have faith, act on that faith, and to wait. This week, I want to dive a bit deeper into the ‘wait’ part of that equation. We’ve already said that wait means more than just some passive holding pattern – like waiting in line to get your license renewed or waiting for the light to change. Waiting like that is merely a passive coasting through life that blindly wishes for good things but has no active role in bringing them about. Waiting, we said, can also be translated as ‘to expect, hope for, to look eagerly toward.’ This kind of waiting is more than just waiting for a chance to float by in life, but an active expectation – like being on guard, looking for the right moment to come. Waiting doesn’t need to be a last ditch chance of life swinging your way, but can be an active pursuit of the expected action of God – a continual longing and looking – an expectation – for the work of God active in your life.

So how do we actively wait for God?

It begins, first of all, with an understanding of the sufficiency of God’s grace. Whatever is before us in life, God is big enough to handle. Paul, the great apostle of the church, more than certainly understood this. In 2 Corinthians he reminds the readers that he’s not had a sheltered and cushioned life. He’s endured ship wrecks, beatings, lashings, the dangers of first century travel, hunger, physical distress – it’s almost as if he says, “You name it, it’s happened to me.” But then he goes on to talk about the strength of God even in the midst of trouble.

So to keep me from being too elated by the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

Paul understood that, despite the trouble of the world, God was with him and that in his weakness, the strength of God is revealed. Friends, I’m not going to lay on you some trite expression like, “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” Life at times for all of us is way more than we can handle. But it is never too much for God to handle.

Lucien and Penny, in the clip from Secretariat we just watched, are discussing which is the best way to prepare Big Red for the Belmont, the last and longest race of the triple crown. They are concerned that he may not have the stamina and wonder how to best prepare him for the hard race. Contrary to the expected training method of the time, Lucien wants to run him harder instead of resting him, but this comes with a risk. They could wear him out and he would have nothing left in the tank, so to speak, to run the race. “If we take a chance, if we push instead of rest him, it could be dangerous. No one knows how much he can take.” Lucien says. “He does. He knows.” Penny responds.

Waiting on the Lord means we must trust that God does know how much we can take and that nothing is too big for God. The troubles and trials of life may be too much for us, but they are not too much for God. In our weakness, God’s strength is revealed. Actively waiting on God means trusting that God is strong enough to handle the trials and troubles of life.

Waiting, actively expecting, on Jesus also means we must shift our focus. One of the dichotomies of the Christian life is that we, though we are spiritual in nature, live in a physical, temporal world. Everything around us is solid and seems to have lasting strength, but the reality is that nothing in this world matters in the grand scope of eternity. All of the physical blessings and hardships of this life are not directly translated into the eternal kingdom of God. This is why Jesus warns us to store up our treasures, those things that matter most, not in this physical world of money and goods, but in the eternal, spiritual, relational things.

Like it or not, even the most abstract thinkers among us revels in the concrete. We may be able to conceptualize God at work, but we do it in concrete ways. We visualize a future filled with earthly blessings which are merely temporary and fail to really see that God is more concerned with granting us greater eternal blessings. Now this isn’t to say that God isn’t looking out for us in this world or that God doesn’t care to provide for us. In fact, Jesus told us not to worry about the things of this world because God will provide all we need. Our greater focus should be on our greater blessings – seeing our lives through the lens of eternity.

The temporary things of this world will never fulfill the eternal longing of our souls. The abundant life that we are promised when we surrender our wills to Jesus – stop trying to live by our own rules for our own rewards and accept the gracious gift of salvation offered to us through faith. It is by surrendering our souls to Jesus, to our salvation and reconciliation bought by the blood of the cross, it is in that surrender that we can begin to receive the abundant life that God promises us.

Friends, all that glitters is not gold. The things that we think matter in this life are only temporary, as our the pains. But the Word of God, that is Jesus Christ, endures forever. Actively waiting, hopefully expecting on God to act in our lives relies on us shifting our focus from the temporal trinkets of this world to the great and everlasting treasure of God.

Waiting also means expecting God to speak and listening. The best example of listening to God comes from Elijah. Following his great success in defeating the prophets of Baal, Elijah goes into what can best be described as a deep depression. He finds himself all alone and is being pursued by Jezebel, who wants him dead. He finds his way to a cave where God calls him to go out and stand before him. This is what scripture reports after that:

And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

1 Kings 19:11-13

Sometimes, when life seems too much for us and we must wait on God’s strength to carry us through, at those times we must also listen for the voice of God. And often, as Elijah discovered, that voice does not come as we might expect. One would expect the voice of God, mighty and strong, to be in the great storm or the earthquake or the fire, but it takes peace of heart and focused listening to hear the soft whisper of God in our lives.

Listening is something that we can all do better, especially when it comes to God. We often think of prayer as delivering a long list of requests to God and then going on with our day. The truth is that prayer is a two way communication – God speaks to us just as we speak to Him. Waiting means developing in prayer an ear that is tuned to listen to God. What helps with this is praying with others. We have a number of prayer groups here at the church and every person in one would be the first to say they are not experts. They are merely opening themselves up to God, expressing their hearts, and listening. You don’t have to be an expert to communicate with God in prayer or to be in a group that prays together. In fact you don’t even have to pray out loud. Each of us can pray and can listen to God, but the blessing of a group is that others are listening with you. This is why James calls us to pray together:

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

James 5:14

Friends, there is great power in praying together. Just think – that’s more ears to hear God’s voice! Waiting, even waiting on the Lord, is much better when it’s done with a friend.

Finally, expectant waiting means acting on God’s call. When we know what God calls us to do then we must act, trusting that God is faithful in His work as we are faithful in ours. Paul writes to the Galatians:

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

Galatians 6:9-10

Waiting does not mean that we have a free pass from doing the things that we already know God is calling to do. While we wait for God’s strength we must also actively serve God’s will in what we know. It is that faithfulness to God that strengthens us to endure. It is that faithfulness to God that God honors by bolstering our weakness with His almighty hand. To wait isn’t to sit back, but it is to act on what we know and trust that the unseen God of the universe is actively bringing about His perfect will in our lives. He is bringing the blessings of eternity to us, even if we may have difficulty seeing them through the clouded lenses of this finite world. God is whispering to us and, if we are peaceful enough to listen and if we surround ourselves with others who can listen with us, He will tell us how to act. But regardless we must press on to win the prize that is eternal life.

It is said, courage is not the absence of fear but the judgment that something else is more important than fear. The courage to win the grand race of life requires that we wait on the strength of God. It requires understanding that God is greater than the fears of this world and that His eternal blessings are much greater than the temporary things of this world. When we actively wait – trusting that God is enough, that God’s eternal blessings are greater than this world, that God speaks and we can listen, and we can confidently act on what God has said – then God will strengthen the weak, bolster the faint. Christ is big enough to carry us through any burden in life if we will wait and rely on His strength. Let us wait together, and expect that God will strengthen us for the troubles and trials of life.