Watch and wait

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Micah 7:7: But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.

Here the prophet expressed hope in God. He set out to look onto the Lord, to focus expectantly on him, because he was assured: “God will hear me.”

In the book of Acts (Acts 3) we see a lame man by the gate called beautiful in the temple looking intently at Peter and John as they came to the temple, but Peter said silver or gold I do not have but what I have I give to you, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. Though he did not seek for healing he got it, because both healing and almsgiving worked by the principle of expectation.

What the woman with the issue of blood had going for her was expectation (Matthew 9:20-22). She expected that when she touches the helm of the garment of Jesus, all the problems she had been facing for many years will be over. She could not be shaken from that belief. And she got her miracle by her faith. Her expectation held her on the path of faith, as faith is linked with expectation.

What Cornelius had going for him was expectation (Acts 10). While he was praying in his house and fasting, God sent an angel to him that he should sent for Peter who will tell him the next step to take. And from that day he did not eat till that happened.

Fasting is a statement of expectation. When Jesus was giving the disciples a perspective on fasting, he showed that not only is fasting attached to rewards from God (Matthew 6:16-18), but it is something the disciples was going to practice when Jesus leaves, when he is no longer in the flesh, as an expression of hunger (expectation of, desire) for his presence (Mark 2:20).

So Cornelius was fasting, his expectation had hit the roof and as Peter was sharing thoughts about Jesus, the Holy Spirit was magnetized by an amazing force of expectation and he came hard on the people in his house.

They all (Cornelius, his household and friends) busted out in tongues as they we filled with the Holy Spirit even while Peter was still speaking. That was the gentiles coming into the fold of the church. The manifestation of God is linked to desire, hunger in the people.

Elijah told God: I have been zealous for your name (1Kings 19:14). His hunger for God drew fire from heaven. He could spend time in prayer to see God glorified in Israel, in the midst of the idolatry and corruption that had ravaged the land. He was not going to join the idolaters but was going to stand with God, doing everything for the glory of his name.

He told the king Ahab, “As the Lord lives before whom I stand it shall not rain because I said so (1Kings 17:1)” to set up a confrontation a few years later with the prophets of Baal. He actively expected change in Israel and become the medium through which that change came. What he longed for became his mission.

He was hungry for God’s name to be glorified. He could not do anything, change anyone, on his own, but he could reach out to God who will cause things to happen and God sent fire from heaven, causing the multitude to proclaim: the Lord, He is God (1Kings 18).

In Acts chapter two fire came from the above, the fire of the Holy Spirit came on 120 people who were in the upper room in Jerusalem. They were with one accord in expectation of the promise of the father as Jesus had told them.

Jesus told them: you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you (Acts 1:8). But for that to happen they had to watch and wait in the Jerusalem for it, for the glory of God to come down on them as it came down in the temple which Solomon built, in the same Jerusalem, hundreds of years before.

Waiting is a spiritual posture. Habakkuk said: I will stand upon my watch to see what God will say to me (Habakkuk 2:1-4). He did not want to come to his own conclusion he wanted to see from God’s perspective so he took a pause from his normal activities. The bible says those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength (Isaiah 40:28-31). When we wait upon him for the next instruction, we are strengthened to do his will and die to ours. Habakkuk moved from his own thoughts to God’s, from his own ways to God’s.

Jesus said: watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation (Matthew 26:41). That is an appeal to seeking God so that we do not fall into the wrong conclusion and action.

The time used to seek God is well utilized. When we pray, in the eyes of the world nothing is happening, but in the eyes of God in the realm of the spirit much was happening.

Paul said: when we speak in tongues we speak to God in the Spirit (1Corinthians 12:2,4). In the physical it may not be much but in the spirit things are getting shifted. Demands are going up to heaven and answers are coming down to the earth.

Waiting can be trying, it is staying in one place and not resorting to self-help because you know that God will come through for you.

Saul was asked to wait for seven days for Samuel to make a sacrifice (1Samuel 13:4-14), but he was overly concerned about losing the battle against the enemy that he did the wrong thing in panic. Waiting is a sign of trust, Saul did not trust God and he could not wait, he decided to take action against divine instruction and lost out on the best of God.

But David said: I will lift up my eyes to the hills from where comes my help my help comes from the Lord maker of heaven and earth (Psalm 121). And that is why he will waited on God for his instruction, and was unshaken in his trust and belief in him.

He asked from God before taking steps to battle his enemy (2Samuel 5:17-25). He did not presume to know what to do. He asked. Jesus said ask and you shall be given (Matthew 7:7). To ask means you rely on him to do it. Solomon wrote: trust in the lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your path (Proverbs 3:4-7).