Placed in The Waiting Room!

Placed in The Waiting Room!

I don’t know about you, but I find it frustrating to sit in a doctor’s waiting room. Waiting, when you feel the need to be doing something else, is never fun.

It’s not fun to be in God’s waiting room either. Waiting, when we feel we ought to be doing something. Waiting, while the pressure mounts and we know that something has got to happen.

Palm 27:14

¹⁴ Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.

The Bible is filled with stories of people under pressure who just couldn’t wait. Jacob the patriarch couldn’t wait, but plotted to steal his brother’s blessing (Genesis 27). King Saul couldn’t wait, but in desperation violated God’s Word and Samuel’s instructions by officiating at a burnt offering (1 Samuel 13). Yet Solomon, whose very life was threatened, seems to have waited quietly, confidently, as Adonijah attempted to steal the kingdom. Even at the last moment it was Bathsheba and Nathan the prophet, not Solomon, who begged David to act.

Bathsheba did urge David to act, sure that if Adonijah became king she and Solomon would “be treated as criminals.” As evidence Bathsheba pointed out that Adonijah had given a feast and “invited all the king’s sons” and others, but had excluded several of David’s key advisers along with Bathsheba and Solomon. In the Middle East sharing a meal placed a person under the protection of the host. An invitation to Adonijah’s feast was a promise of future safety should Adonijah become king. Not being invited meant that when Adonijah gained power he intended to execute that person.

In view of all this, Solomon’s restraint is even more remarkable. We can explain it in only one way. Like his mother and Nathan the prophet, Solomon knew that God had promised he would succeed David on Israel’s throne.

Solomon believed God! And because of that faith during this critical moment in his life Solomon had the courage, and the wisdom, to wait on the Lord.

Psalm 37:34

³⁴ Wait on the LORD, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it.

Proverbs 20:22

²²Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the LORD, and he shall save thee.

I don’t like those times when God has me sitting in His waiting room. I’d rather be out doing something. Almost anything! Only by remembering that we, like Solomon, have been given great and precious promises by God can we find the courage, and the wisdom, to wait until God is ready to act.

Isaiah the prophet wrote these words found in Isaiah chapter 40. These words have been an encouragement to me when I have been placed in the waiting room.

Isaiah 40:27-31

²⁷Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God? ²⁸Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. ²⁹He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. ³⁰Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: ³¹But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.