Need to Know
Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord. Psalm 27:14
As part of my job, I design crates, and then go into the plant to help the employees assemble those crates to match my design. Many times, it is more expedient for me to just go out and help manufacture a single crate than spend hours drawing up the prints to make it easy for them to understand how I want them assembled. On one such occasion, we were building a single specialty crate for a customer and I knew exactly how it needed to be, and just needed the men to follow my instructions. One particular employee seemed intent on arguing with me about how to do things. Regardless of what I said, he replied, “Well, I think… “ Finally, my patience reached its limits and I spun around in anger and declared, “I’m not paying you to think!” The phrase has been repeated in jest a few times around the plant and has become one of those things I’m known for. Not one of my finest moments, but it illustrates an important spiritual fact: Just as I knew the final plan, that my employee couldn’t see, we are not always informed of God’s plan for our lives. We have times that are tough, and seem unfair to us, but in the end God will work everything for our good, if we love Him.
When Jairus sought the Lord to heal his daughter, imagine his desperation and urgency to get Jesus to her bedside. Imagine his impatience as the Lord stopped because “someone touched him” Imgaine his absolute defeat when someone came from his house saying that his daughter had died. In that moment, Christ turned to him and said:
Be not afraid, only believe… Mark 5:36b
I can’t begin to imagine the uncertainty that washed over that man in that moment. He had heard of the things Jesus had done. But people he knew and trusted had told him that his daughter was dead. What could ever be done to fix that? Any sort of recovery had to seem impossible. And yet, we know that Christ can do anything He wants in this world that He spoke into being.
In the past few weeks, I have collapsed to my knees more than once and cried out, “I don’t see what You’re doing here, Lord!” Uncertainty has ruled in my heart. I’ve begged for answers, and sought the way to move forward when there seems to be none. And, the answers aren’t clear. This seems to be a period in my life when the Lord is simply saying, “Wait.” I’ve been shocked and completely blown away by information that seemed impossible only a few short weeks ago. This storm has destroyed so much that I thought was unbreakable in my life… It seems like I will never understand how I could have been so completely blind to this building storm. I just want to know what God’s plan is for this. Now, that isn’t to say that the Lord is behind any bad thing that happens in our life. We live in a sinful and broken world, and the devil is constantly at work, whispering lies into the minds and hearts of anyone who will listen. Satan will taken any opportunity to lead anyone who will listen off the path. But, if we have faith, and we understand that our God is omniscient and omnipotent, we can trust that at some point in the future, we will be able to look back and see a way that God uses even the worst of circumstances for our good.
In the past few days, I’ve begun to pull my head up out of the place of despair, and I can see that God made provision for me months and months ago, so that I would have support and love during this time. I’ve developed friendships across many miles with sweet Christian ladies who can speak peace into my heart, pray with me, and comfort me with scripture. My love of attending revivals in my area has built friendships that are pure and full of love for the Lord. Even my long-term fascination with the Psalms has contributed to my ability to understand that sometimes we must wait on the Lord. I see His hand all over my life, and as those small things become more clear, it gets easier and easier to wait for the truth of this situation to be revealed in His way and His time.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:9
The biggest problem when we’re going through a storm, is that we want to see the why’s and how’s right now… and that just isn’t how He works. Sometimes, we just have to realize that our relationship with the Lord is a “Need to Know” relationship. He will reveal to us exactly what we need to understand, when we need to understand it. In those times, we can rest on the truth of His word. We can search scripture and find many examples of others who waited on the Lord. We can trust that His desire for us is a life more abundant than we can imagine, if we simply follow Him. God is good… all the time! Even when it’s hard for us to see His plan.
28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. 29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. Isaiah 40:28-31
