Tuesday, August 7

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TUESDAY

Do you remember the days of dial-up internet?  Your computer would make all sorts of strange noises and eventually, if you waited long enough, a bar would appear on the screen that would slowly fill-up as you came closer and closer to actually having access to the internet.  At the time, because it was all we knew, it seemed OK but now few of us  can imagine waiting that long to merely check our email.  We live in a society of the here and now, with instant access to nearly any information that we might want, overnight shipping and microwave meals.  Waiting is not something that we typically have a lot of patience for in our culture.

This can be challenging when we consider the fact that we serve an eternal God who does operate on our schedule.

Read Habakkuk 1:12- 2:1-

12 O Lord, are you not from everlasting?
    My God, my Holy One, we will not die.
O Lord, you have appointed them to execute judgment;
    O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.

13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil;
    you cannot tolerate wrong.
Why then do you tolerate(H) the treacherous?
    Why are you silent while the wicked
    swallow up those more righteous than themselves?

14 You have made men like fish in the sea,
    like sea creatures that have no ruler.

15 The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks,
    he catches them in his net,
he gathers them up in his dragnet;
    and so he rejoices and is glad.

16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net
    and burns incense to his dragnet,
for by his net he lives in luxury
    and enjoys the choicest food.

17 Is he to keep on emptying his net,
    destroying nations without mercy?

2:1 I will stand at my watch
    and station myself on the ramparts;
I will look to see what he will say to me,
    and what answer I am to give to this complaint.

Habakkuk offers his argument before God (for the second time in the first chapter) and says, “I will stand at my watch, and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint.”  Simply put, Habakkuk waits.

That simple response of Habakkuk stood out to me.  As I processed this passage of Scripture, it occurred to me that waiting on God is a spiritual discipline that needs to be developed within my life and perhaps within the church today.  As I read, I began to wonder how many prayers I have offered before God and yet haven’t had the patience to wait on the Lord’s response.  I wonder how many answered prayers I have failed to even notice because at the point in time when the answer came, I had already forgotten that I had asked.  What I have come to notice is that I want my relationship with God to be on my terms.  I want it be something like an ATM transaction; I punch in the right numbers and then the machine spits out what I need.  However, there is nothing about that concept of God that fits with the true nature and character of God.  God is eternal and as such, sees things from an eternal perspective.  As a finite being, I cannot fully grasp the implications of worshipping an eternal God. However of this I am certain, there will be times for you and I that will require us to wait.

The waiting is not just a matter of aligning our schedule with God’s. Many times the work that God seeks to accomplish in us and through us takes place in the waiting.  Sometimes the waiting is the answer.  It is in the the waiting that we begin to develop a dependency on God that we would otherwise find ourselves lacking.  Consider how God responds to Habakkuk in the waiting (2:2):

“For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”

Now lets begin the process of hurrying up and waiting.

Pastor Sterling Moore