Walking and Waiting

Isaiah 26:8. “Walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you.”

I have always believed that waiting on God is not the same as inactivity. It does not mean that when confronted with an issue or situation we go sit in our room and wait for God to do something. You know the old joke, where a man was standing on top of his house in a massive flood with high water all around him. A guy in a boat paddles up and says. “Get in!” The man says, “No thanks, I’m waiting for God to save me.” A helicopter flies over and the same exchange takes place. A few hours later, the rising water overcomes the man and he drowns. When he gets to heaven, he asks God, “Why didn’t you save me?” God replies, “I sent you a boat and a helicopter – what did you expect?”

The verse above suggests that we move as we wait. We walk. We take action. In particular, we are to be careful to walk in God’s ways as we wait; to be obedient to his commands.

Most of us like closure to issues. It is hard to keep options open. But often we make the mistake of making decisions ahead of God because we are unwilling to wait for him to show us the best way. We need to be carefully pursuing multiple options, praying and listening for his movement to direct us.

Six months ago our church had a plan to build a big facility on a piece of property we had purchased. We became uncomfortable that this one plan was the right plan. So we backed away from it and opened our thinking to many options. We have more work to do as a result, and we don’t know yet which option God has in store for us, but we are all at peace that we are listening to God and not prematurely closing off options he wants us to pursue.

Do you have a big issue you are dealing with? God promises to hear your prayer and answer it. So pray and wait on him, but walk while you wait.