07/21/2026
Have you been waiting patiently on the Lord? If you say yes, then let me ask this: have you done so without muttering and showing discontent? It is one thing to wait patiently and in great expectation on God, but it is quite a different thing to wait because that is your only recourse... and you do so with discontent, or complaints on your lips. Scripture tells us that waiting brings honor to the Father, and a new song to us.
“I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry.
He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.”
Psalms 40:1, 3 ESV
Our waiting often comes wrapped in suffering. I have found that the things I want or need most typically involve some type and degree of pain, and when the Lord is involved this is true as well. We don’t always take the small everyday things that we can easily do for ourselves to God, but instead we ask Him to look over us as we go about them. However, when we face things that are stretching us, are beyond our ability, or are extremely painful, this is when we truly begin asking God to provide, and it is in these things that we tend to become the most impatient.
I recall working as a painting contractor, pumping gas at a service station, doing odd jobs, and going to school... all at the same time. As if that weren’t enough I was also rapidly approaching my wedding day. I worried about having a place for my wife and me to live, putting food on the table, finding a good job, and any number of other pressing issues. I would pray that the Lord would provide, but I must confess that there were nights when, try as I might, I would fall asleep from exhaustion in mid prayer. As deadlines approached such as the time for rent payments, job commitments, or school assignments, I would pray more fervently, and if I was made to wait, the temptation to doubt God’s provision would mount. Have you ever been there? Did you recall your own pain and suffering as you read my confession?
While I was reading Pastor Andrew Murray today he said something that not only convicted me for my seasons of impatience, but lifted me up as I remembered those times I waited joyfully on Him to act. It also brought to mind the days of suffering as I waited on what I considered to be His lack of provision. Here is an excerpt from Murray’s text...
“In waiting on God, it is important that we submit not because we are forced to, but because we want to be in the hands of our blessed Father. Patience becomes our highest blessing, and our highest grace. It honors God and gives Him time to work His will in us.” - Andrew Murray
Doing something because we love God takes the hard things of our lives and makes them bearable. Our having patience is made possible when we trust in whatever it is on which we wait (but I must admit that it doesn’t hurt to occasionally see a hint of progress along the way). Waiting on God takes trust and faith in His desire to provide for us. He isn’t like a human that we wait on... we can’t call Him up on the phone and demand a status on whatever we are expecting, but also unlike humans, He never fails, is always good, and has a perfect plan for us.
So why is it that we become impatient, and frustrated? Why is it that we let Satan steal our confidence, trust, and peace of mind, as he attempts to undermine our faith? Why is it that we mutter to ourselves that God must not love us, or perhaps voice our doubts in His existence? Have you been there as well?
The fact is... we have a timetable. Our lives are lived, and governed, within the parameters of time. We see our needs and desires bound by seconds, minutes, hours, and days. Our favorite phrase is “What time is it?” God sees us in an entirely different light, and the things that we find so important and necessary to complete today, or in our lifetimes, might not be as urgent, dire, or immediate to Him. King David wanted to build a temple to God; if you could go back in time and speak to him, I am certain he would tell you it was his number one priority! Yet God saw it differently and gave that privilege to David’s son Solomon instead. What God wanted from David was trust and love... and in David’s patient waiting, God said that he was a man after His own heart.
God loved David, and He loves us too. We get our greatest examples of love from God Himself, but we get our steadfastness and patience from Jesus. He taught us how to tarry for days while His good friend Lazarus was dying, and how we should pray over and over again in our own Garden of Gethsemane, but the greatest thing He taught us was that we should never lose faith, or trust, in God’s will. We find in His tutelage that our will must become subservient to God’s.
“May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.”
2 Thessalonians 3:5 ESV
So, we pray, we wait, we suffer, and all the while we are faithful, and trust in the goodness of God’s will. When we cease to do this, we overextend ourselves in debt... financially, emotionally, and spiritually. When we try to make things happen outside of God’s will because of our own self-imposed timetable, or selfishness, it is harmful in so many ways. Waiting on God can end in us either receiving that thing which we have asked Him for, or it might end in God revealing to us (as He did David, Moses, and Jesus) that our will must become subservient to His. God didn’t want Moses to enter the Promised Land, He didn’t want David to build a temple to Him, and He didn’t want His Son Jesus to continue preaching and teaching. What God wanted in each of these examples was Love, obedience, and His will to be done.
So, do we trust completely and unabashedly in the Lord as we wait? Are we prepared to hear His “YES” and “NO” with equal acceptance, and obedience? Are we prepared to trust in Him, and place our will in subjugation to His? If we are, then He won’t just put any song in our mouths... he will put a NEW song there… do we remember this verse?
“He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.”
Psalms 40: 3 ESV
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for the patience you have given me through Jesus Christ, and I thank you for all the examples of obedience I find in your Word and His gospel. I thank you Lord God as I read of those men that you chose, and how they faithfully placed your will above their own, and who trusted enough in you to remain obedient to that will. Holy Father, I know that your will for me is good, and that if I remain within it, that waiting on you will always end in goodness. You tell me this in your Word Father as it says in Romans 8:28, “that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Call me now, Gracious Father, for I love you with all my mind, heart, and soul, and seek to serve and obey you in patience, and honor. Let my waiting be rewarded with your glory, and my obedience with your great pleasure. Holy, Holy, Holy are you my God in whom every moment that I wait upon you brings me good fruit.
“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.”
Psalms 130:5-6 ESV
Amen!
Rich Forbes