Waiting On God

God's Provision--Our Responsibility

God has made full provision in Himself to meet every need in our lives and enable us to fulfill every responsibility that we face. Not only does He enable us to meet every demand, He enables us to meet them triumphantly in victory. He says that He has given us His joy, and that we can participate in His glory!  Even when God is changing us, He changes us "from glory to glory." This is a great salvation that brings us into full fellowship with God and seats us in "heavenly places with Christ." These and so much more are the promises of God, but the question is: how do we partake of these things? How are they made real in our lives? So often we read the promises but never experience the reality. God wants us to experience the reality and so do we. What is the key?

Consider the promises of God in this scripture: "But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before, 'This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,' then He adds, 'Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more'" (Hebrews 10:15-17). Is this not full provision? God says that He will write His word in our hearts and minds, and He will not remember our sins and lawless deeds of the past. This promise is staggering! What more could we want? But the question that comes to us again is "How shall these things be?" Is everything automatic because we have believed in Jesus"

Let us consider the heart as the whole inner person. We cannot get at the depths of our own hearts. This takes the miracle working of God. If I recognize a lack in my heart (my inner person), is not my first responsibility to come diligently before God, waiting upon Him to work in my heart? God has made a promise, and I wait upon Him to do what only He can do. I turn away from all self-effort and cast myself utterly upon God. The "eyes of my heart" are fixed on Jesus even as the eyes of a servant are fixed on his master. We do not know how God works in the heart, but we know He is the only one who can do it. Our responsibility is to come before Him in faith. We are commanded, "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life" (Proverbs 4:23). How can we do this? Only by continually waiting on God in all things, quieting our hearts in His presence, and allowing Him to fill us with all that He is.

What about our minds? Will God write His word on our minds if we do not look to Him? God is faithful to fulfill His promise, but our part is to look to Him and believe He will do it. If our minds are set on other things, how will God write His word there? If He does not have our attention, how can He write His word, and how will we recognize that it is God? "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (Revelation 3:6). Our responsibility is to give God our ear. He will fulfill His promise and write His word on our minds. In that word is grace full of direction, wisdom, and knowledge. We need all of these to move under the direction of the Holy Spirit and in union with God.

Consider one more scripture: "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:12-13). This is a wonderful promise of God that should leave us resting in Him. God is working even before we begin to wait on Him, for He is the one wooing us to wait. Can we hear that wooing? But again notice our responsibility. We must obey, and we can only obey in faith if we are hearing God. The beginning point for us is waiting on God.  God promises to write His word on our hearts and minds if we wait on Him to do so. Is this not God working within us "to will and to do for His good pleasure"? As we wait on Him, Jesus authors the word of God in our hearts and minds. He originates the word of God within us, and this is what we live by. This is the foundation of faith. As we respond in faith, fruit to the glory of God will follow. Are we willing to take the first step? "Be still and know that I am God." From this place, rivers of living water will flow out of our hearts.

While we focus on the importance of spending quality time in the presence of God, let us also realize that "waiting on God" is not only experienced there. If we see how utterly dependent we are on God in the secret place, it will become the "springboard" from which the rest of our lives are lived out. Conversely, we cannot live the rest of our lives depending on our own abilities and then expect to come into the presence of God with quiet hearts, ready to listen to God and hear His word. We should be "waiting on God" in our entire lives--our thinking, our attitudes and our decisions, in public and in private. He is our life. We are called to live His life, not our own.

Next: The Full Provision of God