Why did Abraham and Sarah have to wait so long before they had a child? Why did the Israelites have to wait five years after planting a fruit tree before they were allowed to eat the fruit off of it? Why did David have to wait so long to ascend the throne after being anointed to be king? Why did Jesus have to wait thirty years before he began his ministry?
Why does God make us wait? What good is waiting for us? Can you see any good in it? We usually don’t like to wait for anything. We don’t like to wait at the supermarket, at the bank, or at the gas station. We buy on credit so that we can get what we want right away. We pray for the soon return of Christ and the establishment of the kingdom — we don’t want to wait for it to happen, do we? Is waiting good? How do we resolve this problem of so much waiting?
A Look at Lamentations
Let us look in the book of Lamentations for the answer. Lamentations, like the Psalms, is a poetical book. In English, often poems rhyme at the end of each line, and Hebrew poetry has its own special structure. For example, in Psalm 119 every verse in each section begins with one Hebrew letter; in the first section each verse begins with “A,” in the second section all verses start with the letter “B,” and so on through the alphabet. The structure is similar in Lamentations chapter three. There are sixty-six verses in the chapter; the first three verses all start with A, the next three start with B, and this pattern of triplets continues all the way down to the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Each verse in each triplet starts with the same letter and dwells on the same theme. Each triplet is an idea within itself.
Let’s consider one of these triplets which deals with waiting. It starts in verse 25 of Lamentations chapter three. “The LORD is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” So we see not only that it is good for us to wait, but also we see in verse 26 that we should “both hope and quietly wait for the salvation.” So here is part of the solution to the dilemma: we should not only wait but also hope at the same time.
The Example of Paul
To understand this more fully, let’s look at some examples of people who had to wait. The apostle Paul was a fiery man in his youth. After his conversion he was made to wait three years in Arabia before he was to begin his work. We can examine his spiritual biography by looking at his letters. If you look back at your own letters you’ve written over the years, you’ll probably notice that they have changed as time has marched on. Your attitudes are different. Let’s do this with Paul and look at his letters. One of the first books that he wrote is Galatians. Paul begins his letter to the Galatians with “Paul an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;).” Notice Paul begins with “Paul an apostle,” laying claim to the highest position in the church, apostleship. He takes this authority and uses it, putting himself at the top of the church. But notice his attitude about seven years later when he wrote the first letter to the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 15:9 he writes, “For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” In another eight years when he wrote the letter to the Ephesians while in prison, his attitude has changed again. In Ephesians 3:8 he writes, “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” In those days they used the word saints to denote the church members. So Paul is saying that he feels like less than the least of all the church members. Just a couple of years later, towards the end of Paul’s life, we can see in 1 Timothy 1:15 what his attitude was like: “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners: of whom I am chief.” So here he is saying that he is the chief of sinners—if Paul was chief of sinners, where does that leave us?
Time changed Paul. It seems Paul learned through the years that the more we compare ourselves to Christ and the more we seek to be faithful, the more we see that we are not meeting the great example that Christ showed us. It took years, some eighteen years, for Paul to see that in comparison to Christ we all are the chief of sinners. And so, from his fiery youth Paul has changed to a meek and humble man, more the type of person that God wants. So waiting was good for Paul because it changed him. In fact, we know that God was well-pleased with Paul’s attitude change because at the end of Paul’s life God told him that he would be rewarded with a crown of righteousness.
Demos the Deserter
Let’s look at an example of a character not too well known. Demas was a companion of Paul, and although he didn’t write any letters, Paul wrote about him, and so we can see how Demas changed through the years. Demas is first mentioned in Colossians 4:14; “Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet you.” We don’t know too much about him, but we do know he was with Paul and was probably helping him. We hear about him a year later in Philemon verse 24, “Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellow laborers.” That is all that is said about him there. He is still Paul’s companion. But then in the last letter Paul wrote, three years later, we read what has happened to Demas. In 2 Timothy 4:10 Paul writes, “For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica . . .” So just three years pass, and then Demas deserts Paul and takes off for someplace else, Thessalonica, “having loved this present world” rather than the hope of salvation that Paul had taught him.
So waiting, for Demas, did not have a beneficial outcome. If Christ had come earlier or something had happened to him so that his life was taken from him, it probably would have been better for him. He gave up waiting and took off to get what he could get immediately, the pleasure of this present world.
Modern Impatience
What do these two examples have to do with us now? As there were pressures in Paul’s day, there are pressures today. Nowadays life moves at such a fast pace that in many cases waiting is almost obsolete. “Hate to Wait” could be our motto. All it takes is money to eliminate most of the waiting in this world. If you hate to wait in traveling, just take an airplane — you can be practically anywhere in America in three or four hours. If you hate to wait for a garden to grow, you can buy full grown trees in huge tubs hauled in a truck. After planting mature trees in your yard, you can roll out sod for a lawn, and then plant flowers in bloom. Instant garden! Instant beauty! There is no need to wait to eat — fast food franchises abound everywhere, ready to satisfy your hunger quickly. If you hate to save up for something— saving is not very much fun anyway — just say “charge it” and have it right now. “Hate to wait” seems to be part of our life . An American is typified as running up an escalator because he hates to wait. Efficiency experts have made fortunes telling people how they can save a few minutes of their lives.
The problem is that this hate to wait attitude can affect us in the Truth also. It affected Demas. He couldn’t wait; he forsook Paul for the gratifications of this present world. And this world pushes at us, too, in fact, probably more than it did to Demas. Advertising and modern affluence proclaim, “Don’t wait for a later date.” And so because the world is pushing us, we’ve got to push back somehow.
Pushing Back at the World
The little triplet in Lamentations 3:25-27 which only has three verses to it has three solutions, three shoves back at the world. The first shove on the world is in verse 26: “It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.” The message is, “Don’t just wait! Wait with hope!” We’ve got to keep what we’re waiting for in the front of our mind because otherwise the world will discourage us from waiting. So many fall away like Demas because they lose sight of why they were waiting. Romans 8:24-25 makes the same point: “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.” As long as we’ve got that hope in front of us, we’ll be patient and we will wait. But if we decide we want what we’ve already got, this present world, why wait? We’ve already got it. So waiting in hope is our first counter action move to this world’s pressure on us.
The Second Solution
The second solution is in verse 25, “The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.” Here, waiting is not mentioned by itself; it is connected to seeking. The point is that waiting is not idleness. We don’t sit while we’re waiting. It is not like waiting at a bus stop; we are to wait by doing things. You will find that if you look through a concordance at scriptures relating to waiting that very rarely is waiting mentioned just by itself. In Psalm 62 we wait with expectation, in Psalm 30 we wait with earnest desire, in Psalm 37 we are waiting patiently, in Psalm 130 we wait with hope, in Micah 7 we wait with confidence, in Hosea 12 we wait continually, and in Psalm 25 we wait in prayer. So waiting is an action; it is not idleness at all.
The Blessing of Waiting
Some might complain, “Our whole life is just waiting. Life is so boring. We have to be miserable now if we want to get into the kingdom.” But that attitude is contrary to scripture. Waiting has blessings for us today, not only for our future salvation, but for right now. We read in Psalm 40 that those who wait are heard, in Isaiah 30 that those who wait are blessed, in Lamentations 3 that they experience his goodness, in Isaiah 49 that those who wait are not ashamed, in Isaiah 40 that they renew their strength by waiting, and in Isaiah 25 that those who wait are glad. These blessings are for now, not in the distant future. So, we have benefits now from waiting, and these benefits are another shove back at the world which is pushing at us. We can be confident that if we wait and actively occupy our time, that this present life will be better for us.
Don’t Delay Commitment
One other solution is found in verse 27 of Lamentations 3. “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” You might ask, “What does this phrase have to do with waiting? It doesn’t even mention waiting.” However, the poetical structure of this chapter suggests that each part of a triplet deals with a common theme, and so this verse must have something to do with waiting. The connection is that those who start their waiting young and bear their yoke in their youth have the best chance of enduring the longest. By starting young often we develop and grow like Paul did. You might think just the opposite—that those who have the shortest time to wait would have the best chance of enduring a long time. However, the reverse is often true. Those who start waiting first and don’t postpone it are the ones who develop and grow in the Lord’s service and are able to last many years through good times and bad times for the salvation of God to come. Notice that Demas was a companion of Paul for just about four years before the world pushed him too far and he gave up and took the present world as his god. So, it is important for us to remember that if we dedicate ourselves to the Lord’s service in our youth, the wait will be easier for us.
Wait in Faith
In conclusion, while waiting is not necessarily a pleasant subject because we usually don’t like to wait, there are many lessons to be learned from considering the scriptures on waiting. For some people the wait for Christ’s return will help them in their life as it did Paul. They will grow, and when Christ comes they will be among those that Christ will be glad to recognize as his own. And some will be like Demas. The wait will be too long no matter how short it might be, and they will give up and grasp onto those things that are only for now and have no future. Unfortunately there are always two groups of people — those that are faithful, and those that fall away — and both groups exist now in the modern world just as they did in Paul’s day. We don’t know when Christ will return. We do hope that Christ returns soon. But we know that God has always tested His people by making them wait to make sure that they are faithful to Him. So, we have no other alternative but to think that He will do the same for us, that He will test our faithfulness also. We don’t know how long our wait will be, but as He made His faithful in the past wait, it is possible He might make us wait too.
So at this point in our our journey, let us all make a commitment to wait faithfully for however long it might be. We hope it will be just a few days, but it might be much longer. Whatever length of time it may be, we need to wait for our salvation to come. Let us make a commitment today that we will wait. “Wait on the LORD, be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the LORD.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One