July 27, 2012
Wait patiently for the Lord . Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord . -- Psalm 27: 14 (NLT)
The Bible says to be still and know that God is God. The truth is that we are often not very good at the being still business. I know I can be better that is for sure. We profess to believe that God is God but we do so in an abstract or intellectualized manner, which sometimes is missing the key element of faith. Being still is not an exercise in silence or spirituality. It is often a test of our faith. We pray but we do not persist in prayer. This is an offshoot of the world mentality in which we live. There is no waiting in the world. We expect things done when we want them done and usually we want it done yesterday. The world places very little emphasis or value on waiting and patience.
When dealing with God however we need to realize that patience is a fruit of the Spirit. It is something we should be working on cultivating within us. There are always factors working against us however when it comes to our patience. The primary three that I see are the following. One, we tend to look at our circumstances instead of God. Secondly, we tend to lean towards human reasoning and logic over what God has already said. Lastly, we have the propensity to convince ourselves that what we are doing is somehow of God or pleasing to Him. There is a great story in the Bible that illustrates all of these in operation in the same failure. It comes from the life of the first king of Israel, Saul.
Saul started out a humble man but eventually he began to believe his own press and would soon be erecting monuments in his own honor. Along the way though is a tale of his facing the Philistines in war for a protracted amount of time. Here is where we pick up the story"
Saul waited there seven days for Samuel, as Samuel had instructed him earlier, but Samuel still didn't come. Saul realized that his troops were rapidly slipping away. So he demanded, "Bring me the burnt offering and the peace offerings!" And Saul sacrificed the burnt offering himself. Just as Saul was finishing with the burnt offering, Samuel arrived. Saul went out to meet and welcome him, but Samuel said, "What is this you have done?" Saul replied, "I saw my men scattering from me, and you didn't arrive when you said you would, and the Philistines are at Micmash ready for battle. So I said, "The Philistines are ready to march against us at Gilgal, and I haven't even asked for the Lord 's help!' So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering myself before you came." -- 1Samuel 13: 8-12 (NLT)
It is quite clear that Saul was reacting to his circumstances here. He saw that his troops were scattering. He had been waiting already for seven days. Scripture says that his men were all trembling in fear. Samuel, the man of God, had already instructed him to wait but his impatience grew with each passing day as he saw more and more of his men slip away and the rest grow more and more fearful. This is how we are too before the Lord as we are waiting. We see the situations of our lives unfold before us and we start to worry about them instead of remembering the God we serve. The same God that defeated 120,000 men with only 300. The same God that crumbled the walls at Jericho with a shout. We start to veggie-tale that in our mind. We turn them into cute anecdotes instead of the power they are supposed to represent in our lives. What does the Lord promise?
You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! -- Isaiah 26: 3 (NLT)
Perfect peace within whatever storm we face! But we have to trust in God and keep our thoughts fixed upon Him. Saul here was fixing his thoughts on the Philistines. He lost his trust in God. Whatever Philistine army is marching against our soul today we have to keep our thoughts focused on the God who will deliver us from them.
Secondly, we see that Saul started to think horizontally instead of vertically. He almost blames Samuel! He says: "hey I waited for you but you were late!" Then he states that the Philistines were ready for battle at Micmash -- as if that was a good enough excuse. You see, Saul was not allowed to make the burnt offering. That role falls to the priestly line in Israel. It falls to Samuel to do. Saul certainly knew that yet human logic based upon his impending situation started to creep into his thought process. We can easily tend towards doing the very same thing when we are facing our dire situations. We can feel like we too have waited long enough and God hasn't answered. We can lean to the solutions and advice of the world in solving our problems. Remember the woman with the issue of blood? She suffered for twelve years and often we expound on her story as one of great faith because after 12 years she still pressed in to touch God and knew by faith if she could reach Him she would be healed. But Scripture actually says that she had exhausted all of her worldly wealth trying to have the experts of her day resolve the problem only to find herself penniless and worse physically. She had gone to the solutions of the world and come back no better off. Yes she exhibited great faith in pressing through but she may have only had faith left at that point. There is a famous quote that says we may not realize Jesus is all we need until He is all we have. We need to keep our thinking and logic vertically aligned with heaven. If God is who we believe Him to be then why fix our thoughts anywhere else. The three Hebrew boys did not walk into the fiery furnace because they had a brazen death wish but because they believed in who they served.
Lastly, we see Saul trying to wrap up his disobedience in pseudo-piety. He felt compelled to make the offering because he had not asked the Lord for help yet in the upcoming battle! The Bible says that the Lord does not delight in burnt offerings but in obedience. How often do we see this same scenario play out today? People clearly operating outside the will of God yet wrapping everything up in the name of Jesus. Churches quick to brag about their prayer services but there is so much leaven in them that you cannot differentiate them from the world they preach against. Plenty of religion but no real relationship. Jesus called them whitewashed tombs. Nice and clean on the outside but inside full of dead men's bones. When we start to over-spiritualize our disobedience, we are becoming like those whitewashed tombs. This day was the beginning of the end for King Saul. Samuel would rebuke him and say the Lord had found someone after his own heart, David. Even though it took many years for that transition to happen, Saul was never the same with the Lord after the day he looked at his circumstances, started thinking with the logic of the world, and wrapped up his disobedience in religiosity. Never the same. As the key verse today says -- wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous to not look at your circumstances and the armies marching against you. Only look to your God! Yes beloved, wait patiently for the Lord.
Rev. Anthony
