In our Suburban, loaded with the kids, snacks, Nintendo, CDs, and camping gear, precious memories were made. But, before we even reached the freeway from our house, the snacks were gone, batteries were dead, and one of the kids would inevitably call out,

“Are we there yet?”

Suddenly, we had a new passenger. His name was Impatience, and he took turns befriending almost everyone in the vehicle over the next few hours. Sound familiar?

God’s word shows us that patience calls for us to wait, and we all too often find that we don’t want to wait. We ask, and we wait. We ask again and wait. In prayer, we struggle with waiting, and, if we are honest, sometimes our prayers can be more like demands, and this is revealed in our actual words. “Lord, I ask that you do this right now!” Yes, urgency in prayer is necessary at times, but should we ever come as creatures demanding of our Creator? We do wrestle with David as he writes in Psalm 13:1:

“How long, oh LORD? Will you forget me forever?” (ESV) 

We do need to pray honestly, but some will never be answered. Our sinful cravings make their way into our prayers, and these will not be granted. Charles Spurgeon includes this dilemma in a prayer following one of his sermons:

“The prayers of our lusts Thou has rejected,” but he follows with hope-filled certainty: “...but the prayers of our necessities Thou hast granted. Not one good thing hath failed of all that Thou has promised.”

Our lusts rejected but our necessities granted!

In waiting for answers to our prayers, we must remember that we are waiting for Him! Our trials are extremely difficult. Our sorrows and true needs are real. Yet, what we must realize is that we cannot wait for just that “thing.” We do wait for that, but our hope must be in HIM. He is not simply the means by which we get our answer. The LORD our greatest need. Consider again David’s cry to the LORD in Psalm 13, “How long, oh LORD?”, and keep reading through verses 5 and 6 “But I have trusted in your steadfast love… I will sing to the Lord!” David’s enemies are real and breathing down his neck,… but then he remembers the LORD’s steadfast love and his waiting turns into singing to the LORD. We wait, but we wait for Him! 

We may not understand now, but A.B. Simpson wrote:

“Some day, beloved, in His arms, you will understand. He does not always explain it now… He lets the weary years go by; but oh, someday we will understand.”

Spurgeon calls us to look back while we wait:

“Your prayers were innumerable; you asked for countless mercies, and they have all been given. Only look at yourself; are not you adorned and bejeweled with mercies as thick as the stars.”

“... they who wait for the Lord shall
renew their strength…”
Isaiah 40:31

Tom