Learning to Wait
I’ve been reading Dallas Willard’s book, The Divine Conspiracy. It’s an excellent book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to understand how God’s kingdom works in our lives, churches, and world.
Among the topics covered in The Divine Conspiracy is the subject of prayer.
Here’s what Dallas Willard says about this Divine training in prayer to which we are called as followers of Jesus -
“A major element in this training is experience in waiting for God to move, not leaping ahead and taking things into our own hands. Out of this waiting experience there comes a form of character that is priceless before God.” (The Divine Conspiracy, p.275.)
I spent some time last week asking God for His leadership as I serve the people of Embrace Church. Yesterday, I shared with our church the two things that God has impressed upon my heart. One of those was our need (and this is one of the greatest needs in the lives of Christians and churches today) to learn to wait.
I shudder to think how many, like King Saul (1 Samuel 13), have forged ahead, offering sacrifices they were not called or commissioned to offer, and have suffered the consequences of their rash impatience. Our inability to wait on God, walking in the rhythms of His grace, may lead to church growth without the corresponding growth and presence of God’s kingdom. And church growth without kingdom growth is simply dead works.
As Willard says, character is the result of learning to wait on God. The Eternal One in the heavens, unlike us, does not live in time; time lives in Him. And as we grow in Christ, we will begin to develop an eternal perspective of our lives and world. We will learn to walk in the unforced rhythms of grace. Best of all, we will learn that our God is never in a hurry, but He’s always on time.
Don’t be discouraged as you continue to wait on God. Persist in prayer. Avoid growing weary in well-doing. In due time you will reap His blessings in your life.
In Christ,
Dan
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