A Faithful Wait Versus Faithless Weight

UV 2017/1000 A Faithful Wait versus a Faithless Weight
Wait on the LORD, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it.
Psalm 37 v 34

There is a waiting period which refers only to time and there is a waiting process which refers to the things we feel, think and do while waiting. Few things happen overnight in the Kingdom of God. It invariably involves a period of waiting as well as a waiting process. During this period of waiting, our hearts should be full of faith, our desire should not be lacking in intensity, our efforts should not be lacking in diligence, our wills should not be lacking in determination, our spirits should not be lacking in devotion and dedication. The period of waiting should be without wailing in the sense we should be hopeful, optimistic and enthusiastic. The word “enthusiasm” means to have the energy of God. We should work with the energy or passion of God. It should be like a consuming fire within us, causing us to focus and to persist.

Our hearts filled with faith and love are ignited by a dream or a vision. This is the realm of intuition or pre-cognition. The vision should be translated into goals and the goals into action. The stages of action involves a cognitive effort or a conscious effort and learning from the failures of efforts or re-cognition. When we work using the wisdom that failure imparts to us, we improve. Success is not waiting for all the pieces to be in place but to use available resources in available time to utilise available opportunities to achieve desired ends. Creativity is using imagination and ingenuity to fill in the missing pieces. At each stage of the waiting process there are many unknowns. This is where the process of metacognition or knowing the ways of the Lord comes in. We are not sure which effort will succeed and when. The Lord assures us that in due time or in good time or in His time which could even be in eternity beyond this life, He will exalt us to inherit life in the land of the living. During this waiting process, we cast all our burdens, fears, limitations, anxieties at the feet of Jesus, the Overcomer. I call Jesus, the Overcomer as He is the only One in history to overcome shortcomings as well as death and inspires the same hope, imparts the same experience to all who come to Him. The Lord will honour our hearts’ desires. The Lord will honour us among our enemies. The Lord will vindicate us. He is our absolute Mordecai- the one who nurtured the hapless orphan Esther to see her exalted as queen and then counselled her to fulfill the purpose of her exaltation – to pray, desire and work for the well being and salvation of her people. Esther honoured the desire and directions of Mordecai and therefore, she too was honoured in due course.

The wicked, the unfaithful use short cut methods since they do not have the patience or faith that waiting on the Lord helps. They resort to deceit, fraud, violence and violate all the principles of God and man. They are not prepared to either go through a waiting time or a waiting process. They have little patience and even less self restraint or self discipline. They eventually fall to their own devices and nothing can save them unless they repent and change from their evil ways. The apparent prosperity and success of the wicked are short lived. They rise and fall by their own weight. People will weight them by their strength, power, beauty, fame, wealth, influence but they are only waitng to be cut off as they do not have an eternal hope. They scorn the ways of God and the godly. They reap what they sow. They will be humbled in due course. The Hamans of this world present a counter point to Mordecai. They rise through deceit, ruthlessness, flattery, cunning and relying on their own abilities. The same things that were responsible for their rise will bring about their sudden downfall.

Prateep V Philip