Wait On The Lord

Isaiah 30:18 (NIV) 

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore He will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him! 

Isaiah 40:31 (ESV)                                                                                                                                                                                 

They 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.

Lamentations 3:25-26

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

Micah 7:7

But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.

Richard Sibbes  The Soul's Conflict With Itself

When the morning is darkest, then comes day; after a weary week comes a sabbath, and after a fight victory will appear. God's time is best, therefore resolve upon waiting his leisure. For the better demeaning of ourselves herein, we must know we must so wait, that we provoke not in the meantime his patience on whom we depend, by putting forth our hand to any evil, which indeed is a crossing of our hopes. Therefore, waiting upon God is always joined with doing good. There is an influence in the thing hoped for, in the spirit of him that truly hopes, stirring him up to a suitable conformity, by purging himself of whatsoever will not stand with the holiness of that condition. Waiting implies all graces, as patience, perseverance, long-suffering in holding out, notwithstanding the tediousness of time deferred, courage, and breaking through all difficulties that stand between.

Because God's times and seasons are the best, it is an evidence of true trust when we can wait God's leisure and not make haste, and so run before God; for else the more haste the worse speed. God seldom makes any promise to his children but he exerciseth their trust in waiting long before, as David for a kingdom, Abraham for a son, the whole world for Christ's coming.

 William Gurnall  The Christian in Complete Armour

The sun will not go the faster for setting our watch forward, nor the promise come the sooner for our antedating it. Though God seldom comes at our day, because we seldom reckon right, yet he never fails his own day. (Habakkuk 2:3 "For the revelation awaits an appointed time. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.")

God could have told his people the time when he meant to come with the perfor­mance of every promise as easily as set it down in his own purpose, but he hath concealed it in most, as a happy advantage to our faith, whereby we may more fully express our confidence in waiting for that which we know not when we shall receive. 

There comes oft a long and sharp winter between the sowing time of prayer and the reaping. 

(What) is that which God intends by his delays and seeming denials.  Why deals he thus with his people?  Surely it is to put their graces to the trial, whether they will quit the siege for a few repulses or fall on with more courage.  He holds his peace, to make them cry the louder; steps aside, to make them hunt more eagerly after him; try their mettle how well they will draw, when it seems a dead pull, and the mercy comes not at their prayer. 

Now two things God aims at by his people’s perseverance in prayer.  1. His own glory.  2. Their advantage.  These two are never severed. What fairer occasion can the Christian have in his whole life to honour God, than by holding fast his integrity, and keeping his alle­giance to God firm, when he seems to be neglected, yea, forsaken of him?

Samuel Rutherford, in Letters written while in exile in Aberdeen 1636-1638 for Exercises in Grace critical of Arminianism & the Anglican church 

I will charge my soul to believe and wait for Him, and will follow His providence, and not go before it, nor stay behind it.

Matthew Henry

God will work when he pleases, how he pleases, and by what means he pleases. He is not bound to keep our time, but he will perform his word, honour our faith, and reward them that diligently seek him (Deuteronomy 4:29, Jeremiah 29:13).

G. Campbell Morgan  The Spirit of God

To the individual believer indwelt by the Holy Spirit there is granted the direct impression of the Spirit of God on the spirit of man, imparting the knowledge of His will in matters of the smallest and greatest importance. This has to be sought and waited for.

F.B. Meyer  Our Daily Walk 

        August 22

Too often we have misinterpreted God's dealings with us. When He has tarried beyond the Jordan, in spite of our entreaties that He should hasten to save Lazarus, we have concluded that He was strangely neglectful. But, in fact, He was waiting until we had come to the end of ourselves.

        August 30

O God, whensoever Thy ways are hard to be understood, then may our quiet confidence, our patient trust, our loving faith in Thee be great, and as children knowing that they are loved, cared for, guarded, kept, may we with a quiet mind at all times put our trust in our unseen God. So may we face life without fear, and death without fainting.

A.B. Simpson

We must wait for His conception of our desires and prayers, afraid lest our highest thought should be below His great plan of wisdom and love.