Unfulfilled dreams, various setbacks, and problems all challenge our patience. The opportunity to display patience comes when a desire is not fulfilled. Then we are faced with the questions, How will you respond? Will you continue trusting God? Will you devise your own plans to fulfill your desire? Will you sulk in self-pity and give up?
As John Piper has said, our lack of patience stems from unbelief. Let me explain. If a desire is not fulfilled, then you might respond with impatience. If you respond with impatience, then you are not trusting God and you're actions communicate that his plan is not good. If you are not trusting God, then you do not believe him. Therefore your lack of patience is really unbelief. For this reason, and many more, we must consult God before making decisions, and we must trust God when he does not respond how we think that he should respond.
It is easy to think of patience as a minor issue for Christians, but if impatience is unbelief, then it is clearly a major issue. Yet many of us, like the people described in Isaiah, devise our own plans instead of waiting for God. Isaiah 30:1-3 says, "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! Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation." These verses demonstrate rash, impatient decision making that is displeasing to God, and is truly the opposite of waiting for God.
Later in this passage we find two promises for those who wait.
It is easy to think of patience as a minor issue for Christians, but if impatience is unbelief, then it is clearly a major issue. Yet many of us, like the people described in Isaiah, devise our own plans instead of waiting for God. Isaiah 30:1-3 says, "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! Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation." These verses demonstrate rash, impatient decision making that is displeasing to God, and is truly the opposite of waiting for God.
Later in this passage we find two promises for those who wait.
Promise #1 -- If you wait on the Lord, you will receive strength.
Verse 15 reveals a promise. "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"(Isa 30:15a ESV). Waiting on the Lord and trusting him brings strength.
Promise #2 -- If you wait on the Lord, you will be blessed.
Verse 18 reveals another. "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" (Isa 30:18 ESV). God waits to (1) be gracious and merciful to us, and (2) exalts himself while doing it. God is a just god, and those who wait for him will be blessed.
Waiting for God is often not an easy task. We
consider it waiting because there is something that we desire that is
going unfulfilled. Nevertheless we can be encouraged that God does
not make his people wait just for the sake of waiting. Since Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that
for those who love God all things work together for good, for those
who are called according to his purpose," we know that he is not just punishing us by making us wait. If you're waiting, then there is a reason for it. The waiting
is accomplishing some form of good for us and glory for good.
