Waiting on God
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and not faint.
ISAIAH 40:31
Waiting on God mean – a life of oneness and union with the Creator of the universe.
“Waiting upon the Lord never means praying or prayer. Waiting on God is indeed a lost art. It is lost not because the modern church had lost this ancient art. It is lost because Adam lost it.
The Bible tells us that Adam was the son of God (Lk 3:38). Being a son, he always waited for God to meet with Him. God would come daily to meet and fellowship with Adam (Job 7:17-18; Ps 8:3-4). Adam lost this “waiting for God” when he sinned and hid from God.
When God came to meet with him, Adam was no longer waiting for God (Gen 3:9).
That which Adam lost the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, restored through His obedience and waiting upon, on and for God:
“Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in His inhabited world, and my delight was with the sons of men” (Prov 8:30-31).
Waiting on God is an attitude of coming before Him, knowing Him, talking with Him, seeing Him, and walking with Him.
The saints of old, the Patriarchs from the Old and New Testaments, the first century church fathers, and those right through to our present time, had learnt to walk intimately with God.
Once, the Lord God expressed His desire to talk with the prophet Moses. God told him to come up to a certain place on the mountain to meet with Him (Ex 24:12-18; 33:21; 34:2,4).
It was God’s desire to speak with him, but the prophet Moses needed to seek and wait on God. He not only sought but kept on seeking.
On the first occasion, for six days he kept on waiting on the mountain and sought for God’s presence to manifest.
“Wow! Did Moses really wait on the mountain all alone for six full days?” you may ask with astonishment.
Do you have that kind of patience? Every patriarch and prophet who ever walked with God in communion and fellowship kept on seeking and waiting on God till they found Him.
The Art of Waiting on God
Upon study, you will find the Bible tells us much about waiting. The word “waiting” is used 76 times in the Old Testament with 25 different meanings and 21 times in the New Testament with 8 different meanings.
These many uses of the word may be grouped into four categories, thus giving the word four general meanings.
In the Hebrew language, four different words are used to convey the concept of waiting.
• Raphah means to stand still (Ps 46:10)
• Dumiyah means to wait in silence (Ps 62:1,5)
• Qavah means gathered together in oneness (Gen 1:9, Ps 25:5)
• Chakah means to wait earnestly with a loving anticipation (Ps 33:20)
When we put these four words together we can then grasp the complete picture of what it means to wait on God. So, to wait on God means:
1. To be still – to keep our thoughts and intents of the heart quiet and still.
2. To wait silently – to just remain silent. The soul is hushed and bowing in silence (in faith) it waits before God
3. To wait in oneness – everything within us – the thoughts, emotions, inner conflicts and noises, must be gathered together – mustered together in oneness.
4. To wait earnestly with a loving anticipation – the Shulamite woman, we learn, went about seeking for her bridegroom with a loving anticipation (Song 3:2). Likewise, we are to wait on God with an earnest expectation (Ps 33:2).
Therefore, when we combine these four definitions together, we have one simple definition. To “wait on God” means to wait earnestly in silence and stillness in God’s presence while seeking to be bound in a perfect union of intimate bonding with the Lord Jesus Christ.
It simply means staying in God’s presence, seeking to be bound in perfect union of intimacy. Or as how someone put it:
To wait upon God is to have the heart hushed or silent in an expectant attitude, to hear what He might say that we might do His bidding.
Waiting on God is when you purpose in your heart to come and wait on Him to learn of Him and to eat at His table.
We must do the following:
• First, learn to subdue the resistance within us to be still before the presence of God.
• Second, we must learn to quiet and silence the noise within us.
• Third, the thoughts, the emotions, the physical senses, the restlessness, and even the imaginative faculty of the mind must be bound together in oneness.
• Fourth, we must wait as long as it takes with a longing anticipation. The doorway into the Spirit realm may not open immediately. It may take a while.
“How long do I have to wait?” you may ask. It varies from person to person according to one’s ability to master the art of bringing all that is within into a state of quietness.
The Lord Jesus once taught a secret of the process of waiting on God in this way:
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (Jn. 15:5,7).
The word “abide” in Greek is meno, which means to stay, abide, continue, dwell, remain.
Through this interesting word we can infer that the Lord Jesus is saying to us:
1. Continue staying with Me.
2. Dwell with Me.
3. Remain in and with Me.
Let us ponder another Scripture: 1 CORINTHIANS 6:17 17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
The word “joined” in Greek is kollao which means to glue or cement together. Generally, to unite, to join firmly, is used in the passive voice signifying to join oneself to, to be joined to, and elsewhere, to cleave to.
To wait on God also means to cease from all other activities before the Lord. This is one of the mysteries of the true Sabbath rest.
To wait in the presence of God we must be still, with no movement, no walking about up and down.
Yet when we close our eyes to wait on God, even if our mouth is not talking, we will hear voices in our mind.
Our heart will be pondering over many issues, and our body may begin to feel restless. Hence, we may say that it is very difficult to be still and quiet.
Nevertheless, all these must be quieted and gathered in oneness, because if all that is within us is not quiet, it is not possible to enter into the spiritual realm.
Please remember: the problem of not being able to enter into the deep things of God is not with Him, but with us.
He is waiting there to manifest Himself to us; He is waiting there to talk to us; He is waiting there to take us and show us His Kingdom. He is waiting for us. Are we waiting for God?
When we wait on God, our heart must long for Him. He is not an entertainer, and neither does He satisfy mere curiosity. If we want to walk with God, we must desire and long for Him.
In the late Rev Kenneth E. Hagin’s book, The Believer’s Authority, he described how a turning point came in his life when he prayed the prayers found in Ephesians 1:17-21; 3:14-21.
He personalized the prayers by saying “me” wherever the apostle Paul said “you.” He spent much time praying these two prayers on his knees several times a day in the church he pastored.
He spent about six months praying this way. Then, the first thing he was praying for started to happen.
He had been praying for “The Spirit of wisdom and revelation,” and the Spirit of revelation began to function!
He advanced more in his spiritual growth and knowledge of the Word in six months than he had in his previous 14 years as a minister.
EPHESIANS 1:17-21 17 …that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to me the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of my understanding being enlightened; that I may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power 20 which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.
EPHESIANS 3:14-21 14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant me, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith; that I, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height — 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that I may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that I ask or think, according to the power that works in me, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
The real art of waiting on God is when we can master all that is within us to be still and quiet. The Holy Spirit will then come and carry you, lift you up in the spirit and bring you places.
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