Don’t waste time in the waiting…

This was the encouragement I received from the Lord this morning, but not just me I think, I also believe it may be an encouragement for others too.

Don’t waste time in the waiting..this applies not only in our living daily as followers of Jesus but in our church communities.

What are we waiting for? Is it the fulfilment of Scripture, a promise, a vision, a dream, a prophecy for you personally, for your family, for your church? Or the so called perfect timing…when so and so happens, when I retire, when I have this or that then we can serve, then we can act.

In the meantime, what are up we all doing in the waiting time?

Actively waiting – where we continue living out our lives in obedience to God and growing in maturity of faith or sometimes trying through our own efforts to make something happen. Or the passive waiting…we do nothing, whilst we wait for whatever it is to happen and come to pass. Yearning for the promised time ahead but not living and being involved in the actual here and now.

What if we have the timing wrong……or it’s a false prophecy, word or dream. We wait, we wait and wait some more – still thinking and being encouraged or wrongly thinking that the fulfilment is soon but it might not be. It could be a long way off…

These are not new experiences. It is common to all of us. When you read the Bible we see examples in the Old Testament and also the New Testament where people are waiting for…..a promised son, deliverance from their enemies and slavery, healing, the second coming and the return of Jesus, the greatest revival in history, the rapture…..we could go on and on.

We can learn from what others have done in the waiting times – and what they were encouraged to do.

The Lord drew my attention to Jeremiah the Prophet’s instructions to the exiles who had been taken from Jerusalem to Babylon as captives. They were waiting for God’s deliverance. They were being told by some wrongly that it would be imminent but God told the prophet Jeremiah that it would be a long time, a generation, 70 years before it happened. Whilst they were waiting they had to get on with living their lives as God wanted them to do.

These are the instructions they were given

“Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters—that you may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace”. Jeremiah 29:5-7

What does God want us to be doing in our waiting times. Let’s not waste time in the waiting..