The Waiting Room of God

 
^{by: carole l. haines}

³ Trust in the Lord and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.
⁴ Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart. ⁵ Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He will do it.
⁶ He will bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment as the noonday. ⁷ Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. (Psalm 37 NASB)

The Waiting Room of God is one of the hardest lessons to embrace in our walks with Christ.  I know that for much of my younger life, I was like a puppy straining at the leash; choking, wheezing, pulling. But as I have grown up in the Lord, I have slowed my pace, and am learning better how to walk beside Him, to keep pace with Him, to not run ahead so much.  He will get me there, in His time.  I know it probably seems silly to some, to compare my walk with the Lord to walking a dog, but I am an avid pet owner and have learned lots from them.  I look at the breakdown of the passage above and see that in God’s Waiting Room, there are things I am to do, and things only God can do.  Let’s break it down together:

³ Trust in the Lord and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. I am to focus on trusting in the Lord, doing good wherever I can do good.  I am to dwell where He has placed me, minister there, and cultivate faithfulness.  When I looked up the Hebrew for “cultivate,” I found that it means to shepherd, pastor, keep company with.  I am to faithfully shepherd those whom God has placed in my life, faithfully minister to them, and love them in Him.

⁴ Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart. I have discovered a wonderful truth in this particular verse.  I used to think it meant that if I delighted in the Lord, he’d give me what my heart desires.  But I have come to find that what it really means is that if I delight in the Lord, He will manifest His purpose into my heart, and enable me to walk out that purpose.  You see, when I delight in the Lord, I find who I truly am and my desire becomes what He desires. My purpose comes into focus, and I realize who I am, and why I am here on earth.  Then I simply walk out, day to day, what He places in front of me.

⁵ Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He will do it. Commit means to roll away, to roll together, to flow down.  We are to roll everything toward the Lord, to cast our cares upon Him because He cares for us.  We are to bring ourselves in sync with Him, to roll together with Him, to flow down.  Jesus tells us: “Whoever believes in Me, from his innermost being shall flow Rivers of Living Water.” O, I want to be a refreshing River in the Body of Christ, we all do, I’m sure.  But in the process of seeking this, there are things we do, and things only God can do.  We must learn the difference and yield to Him.

⁷ Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Rest means to be silent, be still, to die.  That is interesting in the light of Jesus’ words to us:

“Whoever wishes to follow Me, Must Deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 6:24NASB) We must die to ourselves, and let Him live through us.

Wait patiently means to dance, whirl, OR to be anxious and fear.  Wow, two choices in how we wait patiently for the Lord.  Both are active, not passive.  We can wait in worship and delighting in Him in so that our life is a dance, or we can wait worrying, fearing or being anxious.  Let’s choose to worship in the Waiting Room of God. Let’s choose to delight in Him, trust Him, Rest in Him and Wait patiently for Him.  He is faithful, He is good.