Grace For The Journey

The Bible says in Isaiah 30;18, “Therefore the Lord will wait, that He may be gracious to you; and therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him.”

Do you recall the voice of your child saying, “I can do it myself!” meaning, “Stop helping, I can manage on my own?”  Remember how you would wait close by watching his/her little fingers make an ungainly attempt at imperfect self-sufficiency?  Parental waiting was a part of his struggle to grow up.  Your love for them meant you were there to lend a hand and guide him to success.

Parental supervision is a different story when danger lurks in the shadows.  The child’s desire to “I can do it myself” can have disastrous consequences and the child needs immediate intervention or destruction is assured.

The Children of Israel in Isaiah’s day were like willful children seeking to rescue themselves in the face of danger without coming to the Lord for help.  In their case they did not have the child-like excuse of innocence.  They were pursuing other avenues of rescue from the dreaded Assyrian enemy.

They were turning to other nations

And their own resources

Rather than

Turning in repentance and

Waiting upon God for deliverance.

The intervening verses between 15 and 18 display their own inept attempts and paint a picture of self-inflicted terror.  God tells them that though they seek fast horses to flee the enemy the enemy will also have swift horses to pursue them.  Judah will be upended by the fearsome ravings of a few and the story of their self-destruction will stand out like a lonely tree on a hill.

When God’s people do not rely on Him

They often trip themselves up spectacularly,

Not because God is not able,

But because they forgot God in their pursuits.

Verse 18 is the key of the passage.

God does not give up on His own people.

When we do not wait on God

The Bible says that He waits on us

And His waiting is so that

He may show His favor

Upon His own when it is just.

He is righteous, loving the right.

The word that Isaiah was led by the Holy Spirit to use to describe God’s seeming absence is the word “wait.”  It signifies the gracious heart of the Almighty toward His errant children because it means “to wait with an earnest expectation and longing, with a desire for something.”  How amazing to grasp the meaning that when God’s people do not “wait” upon God we cause Him to “wait” for us!

Allow me to share four things about this biblical concept.  As we consider this truth, our first thought is, “Why should He wait – Why does He not act at once?”  Because something in us hinders Him from working at this time.  We cannot enter into spiritual blessings till we are made capable of them by faith.  It would not be for our good to receive some temporal blessings until sorrow has done its work on us.

The great thought here is that

God has a right time for help.

He is “a God of judgment,”

This means, “He discerns our moral condition

And shapes His dealings accordingly.”

He never gives the wrong medicine.

Second, His waiting is full of work to fit us to receive His grace.  It is not a mere passive standing by, until the fit conditions are seen in us; but the Bible tells us that He ‘is exalted’ while He waits.  Literally this phrase means, “lifted up in the manifestation of His might, and by His energy in preparing us for the gifts that He has prepared for us.” Elsewhere the Bible reminds us, “He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God.”  

He who prepares a place for us

Is preparing us for the place.

He who has grace which He is ready to give us here,

Is making us ready for His grace.

The meaning of all God’s work on us is to form a character fit to possess His highest gifts.

Third, His waiting is very patient.  The divine husbandman “waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it.”  How wonderful that in a very real sense He attends on our pleasure, as it were, and lets us determine His time to work.

Fourth, God’s waiting is full of divine desire to help.  It is not the waiting of indifference, which says: “If you will have it-well and good. If not, it does not matter to Me.”  But “more than they that watch for the morning,’ God waits ‘that He may be gracious unto you.”

Some people think that we should come to God after we take care of everything first, or after things get just a little more out of hand, or when we are ready.  Those who think this way are, in effect, making God wait and ignoring the disaster that dogs their footsteps.

Believers are summoned to repent, obey, and wait upon God.  Do you know how to wait upon God?  Is there some aspect of your life where you need to practice waiting upon your Heavenly Father?  He promises, “Blessed are all those who wait for Him.”

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”