Wait for the LORD; be strong and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the LORD. Psalm 27:14.
Wait for the LORD and keep His way, and He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you will see it. Psalm 37:34.
I waited waited for the LORD; and He inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Psalm 40:1-3.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God says:
Sometimes you just need to come and rest in My everlasting arms. Come to Me, all you who are weary, and I will give you rest. If you are weary it is because you have not been spending enough time with Me. Have you never read, “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait on the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.” Isaiah 40:28-31.
What does it mean to “wait on the LORD?” Simply what it says, it means to come to Me confident that what I promised I will perform in your life and rest with Me with no anxiety while you wait for My promise to manifest in your life. But how do you wait? The same way a mother waits to have her precious baby while it is still in her womb, she gets everything ready for the baby’s arrival and has all the supplies and plans for the baby in place before the baby comes forth. She even picks a name and dreams of how it will be to hold the baby in her arms and see to all the baby’s needs. Others also help her to prepare, even to giving “baby showers” filled with gifts and supplies preparing for the baby’s arrival on the scene.
Also, you wait like a farmer who plants seed. Once the seed is planted, he waits patiently for the harvest, but he does not sit around to wait. He must cultivate and watch over the seed. He must water it, weed it, keep insects, birds, and pests from devouring the tender shoots or the seeds. He has no doubt the seed will sprout and grow, but he knows he has a part to play in its growth and its protection. And when the harvest time comes, he cannot just sit around and wait, he must get to work to bring in the harvest so it does not rot on the ground.
In the same way, a mother’s work does not end when the baby is born, she is just beginning. And she will be surprised how much time and attention that little baby needs.
Waiting is the time of preparation for the promise. But just as the expectant mother and the farmer sowing seed to not see the result immediately, they are sure it is coming. And so should you be of My promises you find in My Word even if they do not come to pass immediately. Sometimes it is not Me slowing up the process, but you or someone else, like Joshua and Caleb were hindered by a whole generation of unbelieving Israelites.
You conceive a dream, a hope, a desired result and you have found the promise in My Word so you bring it to Me and begin to plan and to get ready to see it come to pass. You begin to rejoice. And in rejoicing you will find strength. Depressed people have no strength. They will sit and stare, avoiding others, while happy people will bounce all over a room overflowing so much that they talk to everyone and anyone. And you can be happy before you see My promise actually manifest, just like Mary and Elizabeth—both rejoicing about their precious babies but neither one had actually been born yet, both were still in the womb. But they believed My Word would come to pass. And that is why Elizabeth, and all generations, call Mary blessed. Because she believed My Word to her would be fulfilled. And of course it was. She did not draw back but went forward in haste towards the promise. And when Joseph understood from My angel what was going on, he was preparing right along with her for My promise, foretold long ago in My Word, to come to pass. Both Mary and Joseph needed no further proof than My Word to start preparing for the fulfillment of the promise contained therein.
Are you like that too? Are you preparing to receive your buildings, your houses, your farms, as I promise? Are you preparing for healing and youth renewal? Are you preparing to employ your skills in being good stewards of My manifold grace? What are you believing for that you have found in My Word and how are you preparing for it to come to pass in your life? Do you have a plan in place? Pharaoh had a dream from Me that was confirmed twice, but the dream did him no good until he found the man with the plan to carry it out. And even though I told David he was not to build Me a house but his son would, David drew up all the plans for the temple and gathered and stored up all the funds and supplies that would be needed to build that magnificent dwelling place for Me. All Solomon had to do was carry it out to completion. But the preparation as David waited on Me was what really mattered in getting the temple that resulted under Solomon.
And there is another form of waiting too. It is the kind of waiting in a very difficult situation where you need deliverance and you wait on Me for that deliverance. And how do you wait? With faith and patience, you can wait and not give in when you know that I have given you the solution already, you need only to draw it out. This is like the waiting Jacob’s son Joseph did as a slave in Potiphar’s house and as a prisoner in the Egyptian dungeon. He kept operating in excellence, doing his work unto Me, and keeping his eyes on Me no matter what the circumstances. He knew no matter what else happens I am faithful and I am the solution to every problem known to man. And I gave him and all his family a mighty deliverance.
And there was the wait of the Patriarchs and prophets, who lived in time before the death and resurrection of Jesus, in paradise, that is, Abraham’s bosom, for their redemption in the blood of My Son and their justification when I raised Him from the dead before the gates of Heaven were open to those in Covenant with Me. For them, a thousand years were but a day in My sight.
When you love, time moves swiftly. Jacob worked seven years for Rachel but they seemed to him but a few days because he had so much love for her. And he worked long hours in every weather condition and great dangers watching over the flocks of Laban, Rachel’s father, in order to have her as his bride. For the joy that lay before him, he suffered the shame of lowering himself to be his father-in-law’s servant.
And you too, if you wait on Me in love, the time will be short and sweet. Joshua and Caleb never recriminated or upbraided the Israelites that kept them out of the Promised Land for forty-years. They traveled with them in love as they worshiped Me and looked forward to the promise I made to them through Moses that they would go into the Promised Land and conquer it. They used the time to prepare for the joy that lay before them. And when the time came for them to go, when they were released from all the grumblers who kept them out, they were ready to conquer. And Caleb, once he entered the land, spoke out and declared that he was stronger to take down the giants than he had been forty-five years before. Why? Have I not promised to renew your youth like the eagle? He agreed with Me. Will you?
I love you. Come to Me and rest as we prepare for the greatest year of your life thus far.