WAIT AND TRUST (PART 2)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the descendants of Jacob. I will put my trust in Him.

Isaiah 8:17

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

The Lord spoke powerfully to me yesterday as He does always but it was so moving in this case that I felt called to do a second devotion on the subject of waiting and trusting in the Lord. I, and obviously the Lord in His calling me to do this, think this is as an important topic as any to discuss when it comes to our Christian walk of faith during this journey we call life.

To recap, the prophet Isaiah who was fully aware of the coming judgment that God was bringing on the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the form of invasion, destruction, and exile at the hands of the Assyrians and Babylonians, wrote these extraordinary and inspiring words of faith:

I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the descendants of Jacob. I will put my trust in Him. Isaiah 8:17

Yesterday, we focused on Isaiah and how we can seek to model His sense of trust in the Lord, ever seeking to be patient in the throes of adversity to allow the Lord to work things out for our good as He has promised to do for those who love Him (Romans 8:28). For we never know what the Lord is up to in the midst of our circumstances and He, on more than one occasion, has made something beautiful out of something that was difficult and sometimes tragic (we only need to look to Jesus to see this in its fullest truth revealed).

Today, I want to center this second part of the discussion on why we should wait and trust in the Lord for the scriptures offer us several examples that reveal the benefits of remaining confident in what God can do, even in the midst of our trials and tribulations. Through these verses, we’ll find four specific things we gain through our patience perseverance and belief:

1. We gain courage and a fortified heart.

Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord! Psalm 27:14 (NKJV)

You’ve heard the saying, “Don’t lose heart” usually directed toward someone who is in the midst of some form of challenge. The encouragement is intended to lead a person to stay optimistic during times of strife and there can be no greater source of optimism for a person than to remember that the Lord God Almighty is on the case, the One who has assured us that nothing is impossible when He is involved.

With this, we can wait on the Lord with a bold courage that reflects that God is in control, a bold courage that leads us to hope and dispels our fears, a hope that fortifies the condition of our heart to stand strong in the midst of adversity.

2. We gain an inheritance like no other.

Those who wait on the Lord, They shall inherit the earth. Psalm 37:9 (NKJV)

When we courageously place our hope and trust in the Lord, we gain a fortified heart but we also gain an inheritance, an inheritance God offers through His Son Jesus, the only One who can save us from death and the grave. Those who place their faith and belief in Him can live in full confidence as they inherit this worldly earth we reside on but also the inheritance that is to come as we patiently wait on Jesus to return and take all Christians into the new heaven and earth promised in the scriptures (Revelation 21:1-5).

3. We gain rescue and deliverance.

Wait on the Lord, and He will rescue you. Proverbs 20:22 (HCSB)

Go back to the Old Testament days. Didn’t God deliver His people from the grasp of Egypt’s oppression and set them on a path to a new land promised to flow with milk and honey (Exodus 3:8)? And didn’t He make good on His pledge to ensure the Israelites would enter into the Promised Land safely, protecting and providing for them during their exodus? Further, didn’t God promise to return and restore His people back to Jerusalem after the seventy year exile in Babylon had ended? I could go on and on but you get the gist. The Lord has shown many times over how He rescues and delivers.

Fast forward today to things we might go through, things that might serve to confront us and take us into times of distress and trouble. Temptation is just one of the things we might encounter, and in fact, we all will encounter it at some time or another. In those times, we can expect that the Lord will be there to rescue us, if we only place our faith and hope and trust in Him. Look at this assurance from 1 Corinthians:

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

The Lord always shows us the way. All we need to do is wait and trust on Him to move in our lives. For

He will be there for us when we’re not in trouble and walking in righteousness as well as when we are being assailed by sin and perhaps moving toward or immersed in wickedness. Turn to Him to find the way as He is the Way and the Truth and the Life (John 14:6).

4. We gain a strength we can’t find anywhere else.

The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:28-31 (NRSV)

One thing we find out in a hurry when we come up against hardships in life is that we do not have the strength to handle what life can bring our way. I’ve said for a long time that the Lord will allow us to try and carry our burdens if we so choose to do so but what we’ll find out eventually is that we can no longer stand under the weight of those burdens which will drive us down to our knees, the place where we could have gone in the first place and made it a lot easier on ourselves.

Friends, we can’t produce any inner power that can withstand the problems of life. Further, we can’t get go into the world and find the needed strength from anyone or anything. No, we can only find the strength we need to make it through by turning to the Lord Jesus Christ, the One Paul wrote this about:

For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13 (NLT)

Paul discovered he could do all things through the strength of Jesus to include a multitude of difficulties and obstacles that were often times dangerous and downright life threatening. We can do the same. All we need to do is wait and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, never being anxious about anything but rather turning to Him in prayer and petition to share the needs we have. And when we send our prayers His way, Jesus is fair and just and faithful, hearing our prayers and taking the weight off of our shoulders as we lay our cares at His feet knowing He has them for action. In His strength and at that moment, we will experience a peace that is beyond understanding, a peace that only comes from the Prince of peace, a peace that dispels fears and worries and stresses, replacing them with an assurance that things are going to be fine because Jesus is with us (Philippians 4:6-7).

Wait and trust in the Lord. Let Him lead you to courage and a fortified heart. Stand by patiently for His deliverance and rescue, drawing from the wellspring of strength He offers. And fully hold onto the promised inheritance we have through Him, now and forever more.

Thanks be to God for His Son Jesus and all He has been, is, and is yet to be for us all!

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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