Waiting on a God who never gets weary

READ Isaiah 40

To a God who never tires. My prayer.

I am weary and tired. I am worn and weak. Yet you remind me of your greatness and my insignificance. You remind me rest can only be found in you—only by waiting in you Lord. I confess in this time I wonder why you haven’t returned. Why our world isn’t being demolished. You may be broken-hearted, yet you cease to grow weary. The nations are a drop in the bucket to you as you express in vs.15, yet you desire salvation to go forth. I’m tired after seven years of being in China and feeling sadness at the state of things spiritually, nevertheless you continue your purposes despite my frailty or lack of energy.  Still, you know my limitations and give strength to the weary. (vs. 29) 

I feel like the various Psalmists and prophets who cried out, “HOW LONG O’ LORD?” When we first moved to China in 2010, I remember washing dishes from my tiny balcony kitchen looking out beyond our gray-communal apartment complex toward a striped red and white smoke stack that warmed our city in winter while belching boiling smoke and polluting our skies for months on end. Out of my depression I whimpered, “How long o’Lord?” 

As anti-Japanese protestors paraded the streets tipping and burning Japanese-made cars while cursing Japanese stores, persons or products in our city, I cried out again, “How long o’ Lord?” What had I walked into?

When I heard of killings in African countries of followers of Jesus through what must have been a wormhole of foreign news because we heard so little. I cried out for my brothers and sisters being shot on the beaches by Muslim extremists, “How long o’ Lord?” Why do we kill?

When I moved back to the United States having missed years of news media and learned there had been years of massive refugee exodus’ I sobbed loads of tears while watching documentaries in order to ‘catch up,’ and again I cried out, “How long O’Lord?”  Why is there war? Why do we destroy each other?

How did this become my daily prayer?

My calling to serve overseas bore forth from an overwhelming burden for the lost—those who’d never heard the truth of Jesus Christ; His creating them, dying for their lives and desiring to restore them to wholeness. This burden grew into a need to place myself among those who had yet to consciously know they were loved by God. I wanted to be love among them. I knew then, as I still do today, that I would never be able to do or say anything to convince a person believe in Christ. Though I also knew God wanted me to go regardless of my insignificance in his plan. The purpose never revolved around me or what I could do or say. He beckons his children to ‘come and follow me, to feed my sheep.’ I strive to be an obedient child. To remain in his will and abide in his plan. It was as simple as that.

Ones’ twenties are the years in which we do a lot without thinking and or have an insatiable need to seek adventure. Me being no different, I was eager to get out into the world and share my faith (the one thing that mattered to me) and to love on the world. 

But my naivety soon met the reality of the world. 

I came face-to-face with a world who didn’t know God and didn’t want to know God. I met a world filled with hostility, emptiness and a drive for money and power at all cost. I met a world of poverty and depravity. I began to wonder if love could ever break these bonds and if my call to live amongst this world in its broken places was a waste of time and effort; an impossible feat for any person. Was God setting me up for failure?  How could our world be so laden in darkness? 

Comforted by my belief that all I could do was cry out to God, “How long O’ Lord?” For a little while I became ok with my complacency and defeat as we all do, and complained rather than making a change or difference.  I became ok blaming someone else for the problem and leaving it all on God, “How can you let these atrocities throughout history continue to unfold decade after decade, “How long o’Lord” must we wait for peace? I laid defeated, self absorbed in pity, thinking somehow God’s plans revolved around only me and what I wanted to happen. These are the low points in which God can wrangle us and set us straight. 

I spent days questioning why God hadn’t returned and how desperate we must be as a people before he looks down on us and says, “I give up” and brings forth the destruction that we humans create? Awakened from my naivety, a word spoke into my spirit, 

“What a self-centered view I must have to think the destiny of our world revolves around when I think enough is enough.” 

God mourns as I mourn for the suffering and hate that grows among nations and people. He encapsulates peace and love, not hate and division. I believe his heart aches over the lack of belief among his created beings in which he breathed his own breath. Genesis 6:6 in response to Adam and Eve’s sin shows God’s hurt in our choices. “And the Lord regretted that he made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” Already at the beginning of earth he’s brokenhearted by us; we disappointed Dad. Thankfully that’s only the beginning of the story. He didn’t abandon or give up his cause for us. 

His heart must mourn for his children who blatantly walk away from him to seek their own ambitions. I meet parents today who can relate to this as they see their children take paths that breed separation and self-hurt. They grieve genuine loss of someone they love dearly and would go to all lengths to protect. Our God is no different. He goes the distance for us.

One thing we fail to take into account about God is his capacity to wait and our devouring impatience as a people. So wrapped up in our own judgments, wants and purposes we believe we know what is best and the right time for it too. I confess this in my own life.

We are an impatient people. This won’t be your first time to hear this or your last. There is a reason it continues being said—because we continue to ignore it in our rash need to have things our way, the way we want them aside from truth.

As soon as I take the driver’s seat and head down the road it’s like a switch automatically sets itself off in my brain—‘must get there quick, blame others for being slow or in my way and huff and puff under my breath in frustration with all other drivers,’ but I am sure you are nothing like me. If someone were to cut in front of us in any line it wouldn’t matter if they were about to die from bleeding out, we were there first and can’t wait any longer. We are a people driven by time, the creator of fast food and drive-thrus were thinking of one thing— how to make more money in a shorter amount of time. Our quenchless need for the consumption of goods/services has fueled online shopping and next-day delivery options. Waiting is not our strongest suite, but thank God it’s his. Because as impatient we are, we need him to be patient with us. We take a long time to ‘get things.’ And even longer to ‘get things right.’

To our benefit he is patient without fault. He never acts unjustly or irrationally. He is methodical, careful, peaceful and long-suffering in how he deals with our waywardness. Our struggle to comprehend this doesn’t make it untrue. Patience is a fruit of the spirit because it can only grow out of our life if we are connected to the source in which it is sprouted.

God’s broken-heartedness doesn’t speed up the process or cut short his salvation plan. Nor does our impatience with the way the world is ‘turning out.’ 

Isaiah 40:28 reminds us that He never tires and this includes his pursuit of those he loves—no matter how long it takes. 

Marriages end on the basis of ‘we fell out of love’ but God’s nature can never fall out of love. He’s committed to the hard work of redeeming our fallenness until it is made whole again. He doesn’t give up on us because we are slow to learn or need to learn the same lesson time and time again. He never wearies of waiting for us. 

I ask, “How long o’Lord?’ because I am impatient. I get weary, worn and discouraged. This is my nature. 

But my nature can change as I connect deeper to His through his Word, living among the broken and seeing others through his eyes, to know in my soul that it’s not over because God’s love is unending and he has more love to give. I need to find myself content in waiting because there is much worth waiting for. The things we wait for far outweigh those we get in a rush. Just remember your last fast food meal verses a nice restaurant where you waited forty minutes for your dish.

 I need the fruit of long-suffering for the sake of what God is wanting to redeem.

If He believes the brokenness around us is worth healing than I need to believe and fight for the same thing no matter how long it takes or much I feel I’m not making a difference—it was never about me, remember? When I do this I am learning to love all created persons with the compassion and patience that God affords them despite the state of things. It’s time for us to be people clothed in patience. Flooded by the long wait because redemption is worth sticking it out.

May our prayer change from, “How long o’ Lord?” to though I am weary, you are strong. Your Kingdom Come, Your will be done.

Isaiah 40:31 ESV “…but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength…”

REFLECTIONS:

1. As you read Isaiah 40 what stood out to you? Consider if there is a challenge for change in these verses or a word of encouragement.
2. Is there something you never weary of waiting for? What makes it easy to wait for? 
3. Think of the areas in your life in which you struggle with impatience. What could change in your perspective of those areas so that you could find a way to enjoy waiting in those moments or areas?
4. What about your perspective of “bad things” happening in our world today? Do you take a laissez-faire view, a come Lord Jesus attitude or pro-active by being in the midst of it? After meditating on Isaiah 40, has anything given a new perspective?
5. How have you been loving and long suffering with others or is this an area you need to work on? 
6. Are you tired and worn? Feeling like you’ve given so much with little results? Do you need to find time to rest in God’s word to find strength in him and come to terms with time? To recognize it’s not a race dependent on you, but in the Father’s? 
7. Confession is a proper posture toward God when we need help or forgiveness. Is there anything you are compelled to confess to God or perhaps another person in your life for help or forgiveness? Take time to do that this week.