Wait

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Wait on the Lord."?

It's in Psalm 27 and is surrounded by this other phrase, "Be strong and take heart."

"Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart, and wait for the Lord."

I know what it means to wait.  I've waited in many lines.  I've waited for people.  I've waited in traffic.

I've waited in waiting rooms.  

And every day when I turn on my super slow computer...I wait for it.

Dumb old computer

I think it's weird to wait for God.  I don't see him as the kind of guy who's late that often.

I'm pretty sure that even if he was late, he could turn back time like Superman and not be late.

And besides all of this, I don't really like waiting all that much anyway.

But I don't really think he means we have to wait because he's running late because he couldn't find his car keys.

(Though that would be kind of funny if GOD lost his car keys...because when I loose mine I pray to God about finding them).

Okay, I'm pretty sure God has never lost his car keys.

I think he tells us to wait, because he is not in a rush...

EVER

His asking us to wait is more the wait til the wine ages waiting.

The kind of waiting that makes things better.

Maybe.

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I think I know what it means to be strong.

I've had to be strong a few times.

The times when I had to be strong I leaned on God very heavily.

He makes me strong.

Because in the time I had to be strong I just felt like running around weeping like a lunatic.  Luckily God gave me enough sense to know THAT wouldn't help anything.

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Take heart.

I'll be honest here and tell you that when I first thought about what that means the very strange image of an Aztec taking a still beating human heart out of a sacrificial victim came to mind.

Ewwwwww

That really is taking heart.

But I am positive that God didn't mean THAT (you crazy ancient Aztecs).

What I think is that God wants us to take courage.

Take heart that if we wait for him to move we will not be disappointed, nor will he leave us waiting forever.

I am very bad at this.

I like to get things done and get them done now.

And every once in a while I get suspicious of God.

Okay, I get suspicious of God all the time and wonder if he just wants everyone to be nice and sweet and bored their whole lives.

But then I think, no, he doesn't.

God is too wild to be boring and he love us too much to leave us hanging.

The thing is he wants us to wait so that we can see what he's doing and get in on the action and depend on him.

Because in this crazy world we need to need him.

Wait.  Be strong.  Take heart.  The Lord is on the move.