What does the Bible say about waiting?

The word “wait” in Isaiah 40:31 has the thought of simply and singly looking to Him. It also embraces waiting for Him, and expecting from Him. It is a very full word. That accounts for it being variously translated. One word in English does not give the fullness of its meaning. It is upon God alone then we are to wait. We are to look to Him; to wait for Him; and to expect from Him only. In this exercise we deepen in the knowledge of that which is before the mind of God; and that displaces things which have been before our own minds that are not according to His. Who has been HIS counsellor? Who showed HIM the way of understanding? HE makes known to us HIS counsels, and directs our minds in the way of understanding, as we wait upon Him. His thoughts, not those that originate in our minds, are to abide! His strength, not ours, will prevail! and it is this which He would have us to possess. He says, The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it; and again, They that wait upon the Lord shall renew (change) their strength (40:5, 31). The word of our God shall stand for ever (v. 8). Let the eyes look up to the heavens—He created them, and all their starry host. Let them look abroad upon the earth beneath—He weighed the mountains; He meted out the dust of the land; and the waters of the sea; He measured in the hollow of His hand! They all manifest His eternal power and divinity. Even the nations, so prominent now by their strifes and ingenuity in destruction, are to Him as the small dust of a balance. “All nations before Him are as nothing,” and vanity! They are counted to Him less than a cypher (v. 17)! WAIT UPON HIM!

How He values those who do so, both old and young. They are spoken of as His flock in this very chapter, which describes the majesty and might of God so magnificently. He feeds them as a shepherd, and gathers the lambs with His arm, carrying them in His bosom; gently leading those that are with young. With what confidence then we may WAIT UPON HIM. His mind and strength are to be ours. We thus change our strength.

The youth who trusts merely in his own vigour faints and grows weary. The young man who seems so tireless in his natural energy shall fall. But those that wait upon God find strength unfailing. Nature fails, but God fails not. Weariness and fainting are unknown to Him; and it is He who gives strength to those that look to Him alone; so that they may rise above the distractions of this world; or better still, run through them without any weariness; or still better, walk in quietness with God in spite of them, and not faint (v. 31). There it is:—Waiting and its consequences;—mounting up, running and walking in new strength from God! Oh, may my soul know this change of strength in an increasing measure! Therefore will I say to my soul: “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.”

The solemn question that needs to be pressed home again and again upon the hearts of the children of God is, What is the secret of our weakness? We have been born again; we have received the indwelling Spirit; we have much knowledge of Scripture, of God's dispensations and ways, and yet weakness - spiritual weakness - is our prevailing characteristic. There are few who would not assent to this statement. Let us speak boldly, and challenge the consciences of the saints if it be not so. Let us ask whether the sense of it is not often painfully present to our souls? In our contact with the world, are we not often made to feel it? Beholding our fellow-believers entangled in the snares of the world, or in evil associations, do we not often pass them by, because we are conscious of our powerlessness to extricate them? If others are overtaken in a fault, how many of us are "spiritual" enough to restore them in the spirit of meekness? Have we not often to confess that we know not how to meet the difficulties that arise in the Church? Nay, is not our weakness expressed in every direction of our spiritual life? In walk and in service, in private and in public? If this be so, why is it? It is quite true our blessed Lord said, "Without me ye can do nothing." (John 15:5.) But it is equally true that His servant Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me" (Phil. 4:13); and the same apostle reminds Timothy that "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." (2 Tim. 1:7.) If indeed we are taught that we are not "sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves," we are also told that "our sufficiency is of God." (2 Cor. 3:3.) Again therefore we ask, Whence our weakness? There is reason to fear that it all springs FROM WANT OF WAITING UPON GOD. "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." (Isa. 40:31.) This scripture is conclusive, and assures us that spiritual strength is the direct consequence of waiting upon God. It is so of necessity; for in so doing we confess our weakness, and express our dependence, and it is only when we are dependent that the Lord can display through us His almighty power. It is here therefore that the recovery must begin. Let us then, individually, and when we meet together, seek for a larger spirit of patient, persevering waiting upon God. The effect of this would soon be manifest in every department of spiritual life. Ministry, worship, prayer meetings, testimony, and walk would all be in the power of the Holy Ghost. We should then fear no difficulty, be afraid of no opposition; but conscious of our utter weakness in ourselves, we should yet continually rejoice in the all-sufficient and omnipotent resources of our God. "Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: WAIT, I SAY, ON THE LORD." (Ps. 27:14.)

Here we find unbelief casting its dark shadow across the spirit of Abraham, and again turning him aside, for a season, from the path of simple, happy confidence in God. "And Sarai said to Abram, Behold the Lord has restrained me from bearing." These words bespeak the usual impatience of unbelief; and Abraham should have treated them accordingly, and waited patiently on the Lord for the accomplishment of His gracious promise. The poor heart naturally prefers anything to the attitude of waiting. It will turn to any expedient — any scheme — any resource, rather than be kept in that posture. It is one thing to believe a promise, at the first, and quite another thing to wait quietly for the accomplishment thereof. We can see this distinction constantly, exemplified in a child. If I promise my child anything, he has no idea of doubting my word; but yet, I can detect the greatest possible restlessness and impatience in reference to the time and manner of accomplishment. And cannot the wisest sage find a true mirror in which to see himself reflected, in the conduct of a child? Truly so. Abraham exhibits faith, in Gen. 15 and yet he fails in patience, in Gen. 16. Hence the force and beauty of the apostle's word, in Hebrews 6, "followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." God makes a promise, faith believes it; hope anticipates it; patience waits quietly for it.

A fourth instruction follows in verse 7. "Rest in the Lord," or, as the margin says, "Be silent to the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." This follows in obvious sequence. Having rolled our way upon the Lord, so that the responsibility and weight of it are now His, we rest in Him and wait for Him to act. The wicked may still appear to flourish and bring his wicked devices to pass, but that no longer frets us. God is wholly competent to deal with all that, in His own time and way. We wait patiently for Him and rest the meanwhile. We are relieved of the whole business, it is His, not ours.

The Hebrew idiom, "Be silent to the Lord," is very expressive. The inference seems to be that we have so really committed our way to Him, and are so fully prepared to wait patiently for His intervention, that we have nothing more to say. When faith is low we become like querulous children, fretful because others seem to be more favoured than ourselves, and constantly interrupting our parents with questions and complaints. We are happy indeed when faith is vigorous, and as far as questionings and complaints are concerned we are silent to the Lord.

Verse 34 adds one further thing. We are not only to wait patiently for the Lord, but also to "wait on the Lord, and keep His way." Waiting for Him means exercising trustful patience until He intervenes. Waiting on Him means the maintaining of that holy intercourse and communion with Him that ensures obedience to His will, while we wait for His intervention.

"Strengthened unto all patience." You will find there is nothing that tests the strength of your soul like waiting for God. We think we must do things that we think right; we must rather learn to wait. Take Saul, for example, in 1 Samuel 13. He ought to have waited, and said, I can do nothing. We have but a little while more to go through the wilderness, but it is with God.

In the next two verses we have the soul's attitude and confidence: 5 I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in His word do I hope. 6 My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning.

Such waiting on the Lord could only spring from the confidence of faith. The word so translated, indeed, means "to hope that a thing will be effected, and to wait steadily and patiently till it is effected." Everywhere in the Scriptures, especially in the Gospels, perseverance is seen to be a characteristic of genuine faith. Assured, therefore, that there was forgiveness with the Lord, the Psalmist waits upon Him until he enters upon the enjoyment of the desired blessing. And he tells us, moreover, the ground of his expectation: "and in His word do I hope." It was this which encouraged him to wait on,* because having the word of God as the foundation of his trust, he knew that he would not be confounded. So we read in John's Epistle, "If we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us; and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him." Knowing this, we can wait on, wait His time, calmly resting upon His word, as in our Psalm.

*The word rendered "hope" is often given as "wait," though not the same word as in the former part of the verse. It "imports properly a long and patient waiting," combined with the expectation of the thing waited for.

"The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord" (v.25-26). The reason the truths here taught are so little entered into is simply because waiting upon God is largely a "lost art" among Christians nowadays. The rush and hurry of the age; "the lust of other things;" in a word, the worldliness so characteristic of the present momentous period in the Church's history, effectually shuts out all inclination to wait upon God, it is to be feared, for a large number of those who confess the name of Jesus as Saviour and Lord. Consequently, little or nothing is known, in a practical way, of His goodness in meeting felt need, and of His ability to satisfy the soul that seeks His face.

It is perhaps needless to say that when Jeremiah wrote, "It is good that a man both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord," he was not referring to soul-salvation, but to deliverance from the troubles and perplexities of the way. Nowhere in Scripture is the eternal salvation of the soul put before us as something to be waited for in patience and quietness. Again and again the contrary is distinctly stated. The prophet is not speaking of salvation in that sense. For light as to the salvation of the soul, we turn to the New Testament, especially the Gospel of John and the epistles of Paul, John, and Peter. These two aspects of salvation must be clearly distinguished. The Lord has nowhere promised immediate relief from sorrow and suffering. When in His righteous government He permits His people to be the subjects of affliction, it is well that they at once seek His face, and wait upon Him. It may not be His will to extract every thorn in the flesh; but if not, He will give to the waiting soul grace to endure, and that with joyfulness.

The fifteenth chapter may be called Abram's faith chapter. The sixteenth is the chapter of unbelief. It was impatience which forced Sarai and Abram to act for themselves. Unbelief is impatience and impatience is unbelief. Faith waits patiently for the Lord, and on the Lord, to act. "He that believeth shall not make haste." Abram and Sarai attempted to help the Lord to fulfill His promise. What a failure they made of it! On account of it there was great trouble in his house.

Nature and self are tested by the waiting times, only faith and submission to the will of the Lord can carry His servants through the testing; but what presumption it is for anyone to imagine that by his own skill he can do this great work, or that he can do it just when and where he pleases without reference to the will of the Lord. Fruitless toil must be the result of such folly.

Verse 22. “For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” Mark, it is not for the salvation of our souls we wait, and hope, but for the redemption of the body. It may be from the grave, or it may be we shall be changed in a moment. It will be at the coming of the Lord. As to the body, even we have no relief from groaning, and suffering, until the coming of our Lord. We see not that yet, and therefore we wait and hope. It is a fatal mistake to suppose all this means that we do not know we have salvation; on the contrary, we know we have eternal life — “He that believes has eternal life.” There is no waiting or hoping for that. But we can wait in patience for the redemption of the body.