Why Do We Have to Wait For God?

God wants us to value Him; we do not seek what we do not value! So He withdraws His Presence, not to tease us, but to draw us after Him, and to expose our hidden attitudes toward Him. Here are some ways we reject the Lord without even knowing it:

We miss Him because He comes to us Unwanted

Jesus wants to be wanted. Though the odds are that all of us say that we want to know the Lord, we may only want to know Him on our terms. But how He comes to us is for Him to decide. Learning to wait brings us to the point of wanting to know the Lord simply because we want to know Him, not for what He does, says or how He makes us feel. Do you want Him? How long are you willing to wait?

We miss Him because He comes to us Unexpected

Just as Jesus wants to be wanted, He also wants us to know His character enough to know that He will respond to our waiting. He wants us to have confidence, excitement and patience for His coming. He is not under our time restrictions, and makes Himself known in the manner and timing of His choosing. But He doesn’t want us taking Him for granted. He wants us to wait for Him with anticipation.

We miss Him because He comes to us Unrecognized

What does hearing from the Lord, knowing Him look, feel, sound like? If we come to the practice of waiting with a clear set of expectations, we are essentially dictating to the Lord how He can reveal Himself to us. It is more important that we have our senses tuned to be able to recognize His Presence than to have memorized ways to evaluate whether it is the Lord or not. 

We miss Him because He comes to us Un-Understood

Even if we want, expect and recognize Him when He comes, we must also learn to understand what He says or does. He is the Teacher and Counselor. He is Truth, and what He says and does will not necessarily line up with what we already “know.”