Nobody likes to wait. We don’t like to wait for a table, or service, or food when we patron restaurants. Red lights and traffic jams are constantly testing our patience. As a result, they organize many retail business models based on what they call “wait time.” Studies have revealed that the average wait time for a customer is 5-10 minutes. Most people are unwilling to wait. Have you ever been behind a car at a red light when it turns green, but the driver doesn’t know it is green? See how long you will wait before you honk the horn. Or next time you go to a restaurant and they tell you how long the wait will be, take a note on how long you will wait. It will not surprise you when you realize how unwilling to wait we are in life.
Ironically, God designs his business based on the wait time. We spend much of our walk with God, waiting on God. Unfortunately, God doesn’t design wait time to be short. Instead, he wants to see if we are willing, or unwilling, to wait on him.
As the great rock-and-roll theologian, Tom Petty, once sang, “The waiting is the hardest part.” Waiting on God is hard, especially when we find ourselves in dire need of an answer immediately, or when we are facing trouble that seems to overwhelm us. In my experience, when trouble comes, many times I am unwilling to wait for God to act. I’m not proud of it, but it is a reality to my experience. Fortunately, the Bible is full of examples of God’s people struggling to wait and unwilling to wait for God to act.
Abraham had a promise of a son from God, but he and Sarah were unwilling to wait, which resulted in Ishmael. Moses had a call to lead Israel out of Egyptian bondage, but he was unwilling to wait and had to wait 40 years before God used him to deliver his people from bondage. King Saul was unwilling to wait for the prophet Samuel to offer a sacrifice to God, so he did it himself, resulting in him losing his kingship. And this list could go on and on.
Many, myself included, would love it if the Lord would do away with the wait time, but it won’t happen. The wait time is so crucial to our walk with the Lord. Most of our growth, if not all, comes in those seasons of waiting on God, especially when trouble comes our way.
During the prophet Isaiah’s ministry, Israel experienced situations that tested their willingness to wait on the Lord. One particular situation happened around 701 BC. The king of Judah was Hezikiah, and the situation was the threat of attack from the Assyrians. At first, King Hezekiah rebelled against the Assyrians, and part of that rebellion was going to Egypt for help. We see this in chapters 30 and 31 of the book of Isaiah.
Both chapters reveal Judah turning to Egypt for help; therefore, these two chapters belong together. The reason they were turning to Egypt was an unwillingness to wait on God. The indictment of the unwillingness is in verse 15, “For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. But you were unwilling.” Israel was unwilling to wait on the Lord, which resulted in disobedience. In verse1, the Lord refers to the unwilling to wait as “stubborn children.” In verse nine he refers to them as “rebellious people.” Being willing to wait on the Lord is paramount to our walk with the Lord.
Studying chapter 30 of Isaiah helps us understand if we are unwilling to wait on the Lord, or not. It reveals three characteristics of the unwilling to wait.
You are unwilling to wait when…
“Ah, stubborn children, declares the Lord, who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!” First, you are unwilling to wait when you devise your own plan instead of following God’s plan.
You devise your own plans instead of following God’s plan
“Ah, stubborn children, declares the Lord, who carry out a plan, but not mine” They indictment is this: “who carry out a plan, but not mine.” It’s very possible that we have all the right beliefs but cannot live out our faith functionally. It’s possible to have plans and strategies that negotiate life from a worldly perspective, but not God’s. When we carry out our own plans, the world sees it as common sense, but God calls it rebellion.
Going to Egypt and making an alliance with them to fight the powerful Assyrians was not God’s plan. God prohibited these types of alliances in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy. From a worldly point of reference, it was common sense, but from God’s, it was disobedience and rebellion.
Common sense does not plan to take on an army of thousands with only 300 men, but God’s plan does. Ask Gideon. Common sense says you don’t plan to feed over 5,000 people with 2 fish and five loaves of bread, but God’s plan does. Ask Jesus’s disciples. You are unwilling to wait on God when you follow your plan, and not God’s. Second, you are unwilling to wait when you trust human strength instead of God’s strength.
You trust in human strength instead of God’s strength
Notice the last part of verse 1, “who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit.” The language here is covenant language. Instead of trusting the covenant-keeping God, they make a covenant with human strength, instead of divine strength. Third, you are unwilling to wait when you listen to other voices instead of God’s voice.
You listen to other voices instead of God’s voice
In verse 2 we read, “set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!” They didn’t ask God for direction. They listened to other voices, but not God’s. We find further evidence of this in verses 9-11, “For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord; who say to the seers, Do not see, and to the prophets, Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”
Unwilling to wait will lead to an unwillingness to listen. The Israelites didn’t want to hear from the Lord. When you take things into your own hands and start carrying out your own plan in your own strength, you have committed yourself to self-interest. You want to be who you want to be and do what you want to do. The last thing you will want to do is listen to the voice of God. Listening to God results in changing your view of God and your response to God.
Honestly, I believe one of the most burdensome things in the Christian life is waiting on God. Our old nature is restless and relentless, tempting us to take things into our own hands. To make matters worse, the world is always in a hurry, therefore, so are we. We will struggle with a heart growing restless and unwilling to wait, which can lead to a reckless life.
Unwilling to wait on God leads to a reckless life
Notice the last part of verse 1, “that they may add sin to sin.” When we are unwilling to wait for God it results in sin compounding itself. When a person lies, they often have to tell another lie to keep the first lie. When David committed adultery he ended up committing murder to hide the adultery. Adding sin to sin leads to a reckless life, and things will only get worse.
Notice verse 3, “Therefore shall the protection of Pharoah turn to shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation.” Shame and humiliation result from the misplaced trust. And it still gets worse.
Fear makes us unwilling to wait on God. Unfortunately, when we don’t wait for God to act, the very thing we fear will happen. In verses 12-17 the fear of the Assyrians attacking happens because they trusted in Egypt, not Yahweh. The tragic story of Israel’s unwillingness to listen and wait for God doesn’t end in tragedy. God loves to turn ashes into beauty, graves into gardens. When the disastrous consequences abound in your life, God is waiting for you when you are ready to wait for him.
God is waiting for you when you are ready to wait for him.
Isaiah sums up the message of the entire book up in verse 18, “Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.” This verse is transitional, looking back to the previous verses, and looking forward to the subsequent verses.
God is waiting to show grace and mercy to his people, who are unwilling to wait. What is God waiting on? He’s waiting for his people to be in a position to receive it. It states the position God waits for in verse 15, “For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” When we get to our wits' end and cry out, “How Long, Lord?” He responds, “I’m waiting on you!” When we return to God and wait on him in quietness and trust, he is ready to bless us with grace and mercy, which he states at the end of verse 18, “Blessed are all those who wait for him.” What is God waiting to do when we are ready to wait on him? First, he’s waiting to restore intimacy.
To restore intimacy
In verses 19-22 it reads, “For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!” The key to this passage is God revealing himself as Israel’s teacher, and the willingness of Israel to listen to their teacher. God will restore their intimacy with him. And as a result, they will turn from their idols.
An idol is anything we put before God. To put it another way, an idol is a counterfeit god that controls your life. When intimacy returns, it’s because God’s people return wholeheartedly to the Lord. Restored intimacy leaves no room for divided loyalties.
Recently, the Lord revealed to me that one of my idols that put before him are my plans. I have made plans with the assumption that God would and should support those plans. I have learned that my plans become idols when they are how I think situations and circumstances should go, resulting in an idea and expectation of how God should act concerning these plans. If the plans are my own creations, they become counterfeit gods.
I have spent too much of my time striving for comfort and stability, when God is teaching me intimacy, and about coming to him, resting in him with quiet trust no matter what is happening in my life. Second, God waits to heal completely.
To heal completely
In the last part of verse 26, it reads, “in the day when the Lord binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.” God wants to reverse their circumstances and situation. He is waiting to heal them economically, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. He wants to bless them abundantly with his grace and mercy.
Hadden Robinson describes the extravagance of God’s blessing well with this thought:
“With Him, the calf is always the fatted calf; the robe is always the best robe; the joy is unspeakable; and the peace passes understanding. There is no grudging in God's goodness. He does not measure His goodness by drops like a druggist filling a prescription. It comes to us in floods.”
Last, God is waiting to deliver victoriously.
To deliver victoriously
In verses 27-33, God reveals himself as warrior coming to deliver his people from the enemy, “Behold, the name of the Lord comes from afar, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke; his lips are full of fury, and his tongue is like a devouring fire; his breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches up to the neck; to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction, and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads astray. You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel. And the Lord will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and storm and hailstones. The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord when he strikes with his rod. And every stroke of the appointed staff that the Lord lays on them will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres. Battling with brandished arm, he will fight with them. For a burning place has long been prepared; indeed, for the king, it is made ready, its pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it.”
The first time God revealed himself as a warrior to his people was during the Exodus out of Egypt. God delivered Israel from the oppression of the Egyptians. Ironically, Israel turned to the oppressor for deliverance instead of waiting on the Lord.
God is waiting to deliver us from our enemies, and when he does, verse 29 says he will give us a song to sing and gladness in our heart, “You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart.”
If we are not careful, we will forget how God has helped us in the past, resulting in an unwillingness to wait on the Lord. We must always reflect upon God’s faithfulness in the past so that when trouble comes our way, we come to the Lord and rest in him in quietness and trust for he is our salvation and our strength.
Recently, Cory Asbury wrote a song called “Egypt.” It a song remembering how God has delivered us from our enemies, and how we should never forget. I love the words to this song, especially these words:
You stepped into my Egypt
You took me by the hand
You marched me out in freedom
Into the promised land
Now I will not forget You
I'll sing of all You've done
Death is swallowed up forever
By the fury of Your love
You're the God who fights for me
Lord of every victory
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
You have torn apart the sea
You have led me through the deep
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Lord, may I always be willing to wait so I don’t keep you waiting to be gracious and merciful to me. Amen.
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