Pastor Wayne Cordeiro
February 8, 2004 - W0406

ìThey that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faintî (Is. 40:31).

Sometimes we hear Godís promises and theyíre wonderful, but I donít know if I like waiting for them, do you? I donít know about you but Iím a bad ìwaiterî, especially in lines. I look for the shortest route. I guess businesses have picked up on that. When I went to Dennyís in San Diego, they brought out a timer, set it on the table, and then set it to 10 minutes. If they didnít serve my food in 10 minutes, I would get it free! It was the first time I was patient but saying under my breath: ìcome on, ring, ringî. America sells on how impatient people are. Thereís this one pizza company that promised to deliver piping hot pizza anywhere in the city within 30 minutes. When they started doing this, their business quadrupled! When the president was on a news conference he said that they didnít sell pizza, they sold service and if you tried one of their pizzas, you would know why! Then thereís fast food; itís not good food, healthy food, or even edible food, itís fast food. When my kids were younger, they would always insist on going through the drive-thru. They would eat in the car and food would start falling in between the seats and the car would stink for a month. Later, when they would say they were hungry, we wouldnít even have to go through the drive-thru anymore...Iíd tell them to look in between the seats. 

Q. 1: Do you have a story about waiting in line or waiting for a service? Did you mind whether it was fast or slow?

This inability to wait is such a part of our culture that I think we bring it into our relationship with God. When we come into a relationship with God, we want a fast God. We want a fast response, fast answers and we want it now! We say we want to get married or we want finances but do it Godís way? We donít want to do it Godís way because itís too slow. Then we try to do it our way and start to realize how marriages and relationships start to fall like timber, we see it all over the landscape. We find that we donít want a slow God, so we create a god thatís faster and start to worship ourselves, or money, or anything that can get things done. We translate that as the power of America: those that can ìget things doneî. So is God slow?

GOD IS NOT SLOW. HEíS PATIENT!

Thatís what the Bible says. ì The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentanceî (2 Peter 3:9, NIV).

In other words, God is saying that He has a purpose for us waiting: the interval time between my need and His delivery. There was a time when Anna and I wanted to buy a cabin up in Oregon. It was quite expensive, but I thought that we should just go ahead and buy it because then we could go up there and take a retreat or vacation, it would be so nice. All the paper work kept not going through and I was getting frustrated because the real estate agent wouldnít get back to me. When I finally called her, she apologized because it had already sold. About a month later I was thinking and looking at my budget... I was so glad I didnít buy that thing. To use it for only two weeks a year during vacation time and it would have cost me $4,000 a week! That would have been the dumbest thing to do because my brother later bought one and now we use it for free!

If we take a look at the way God created things, He factors in waiting time. When some fruit bearing trees are planted, it needs to be cultivated for seven years before it starts bearing any fruit. When a woman gets pregnant, it takes nine months before that child will be born. God could have made the process of having children faster. God could have fashioned it so that weíd plant a seed and it would grow really quick, then we could pick the kids off the tree. However, thatís not how it works. Maybe itís not just so the child can form either. Maybe itís nine months to get the mom and dad ready to be parents. When hearts start to change in anticipation of the promise of a child there is a sense of growth and maturity. There is a reason and God is saying that He is not slow about his promises, but He is patient.

THEN WHY WAIT?

When we wait on Godís promises...

1. WAITING BUILDS A MATURE HEART.

It may be because there is something in the future that weíll have to steward well. We may express our desires for something but God will remind us to stay humble and to wait. Like the prodigal son who wanted his inheritance right away, he wasnít mature enough to steward it well and squandered it all. God knows that sometimes Heíll give us a promise but our hearts are not ready yet. It happened with the children of Israel in coming to the Promised Land. Do you ever wonder why God took them down the long route? Did you know that there was a shorter route along the ocean? Instead of taking what would have been only about 2 years through the land of Palestine, they made a detour in the wilderness of Sinai. It turned into 40 years circling the desert. Why?

ìWhen Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, ëIf they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt...íî(Exodus 13:17).

God knew that if they went on the shorter route, war would be inevitable. Their hearts would not be mature enough to resolve those problems and they would flee in fear back to Egypt. Sometimes Godís going to have us do things His way because our hearts are not ready yet. I want to be married now, we may say. Then we take a short cut and not many years later we say: I want out of this now! You know what keeps marriages together? A good marriage is how well a couple resolves problems together. Think about it. What ultimately destroys marriages is when problems that inevitably arise and go unresolved. Yet we base compatibility on how good he or she looks or whatever else this contemporary society has to say. Thatís a myth. Itís a matter of: do you have mature hearts enough to resolve the problems that will arise? Iíve been doing marriage counseling for about 25 years and I often say that in those years I have not found one problem marriage. No, Iíve found hundreds and hundreds of problem people that get married but because they canít resolve their problems, they blame marriage. Marriage is fine, but God is saying that he wants to work with you.

Q. 2: Share an incident in your life when your heart was not mature enough to handle something you were going through. What were the consequences?

Sometimes weíd like it better for God to just remove our problems, but if He did, would we mature? What if we were walking down the road and God immediately took away every problem that arose, then 10 years down the road, would we have matured at all? No! Not one iota! Itís not going above or around, but through the valley of the shadow of death and then weíll fear no evil because Thou art with me. As wonderful as Simon & Garfunkelís song Bridge over Troubled Water is, itís not over; itís through the troubled water that God walks with us. So ìwhen you pass through the waters...and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burnedî (Is. 43:2) because God says Heíll be with you. He helps us to resolve things little by little so that we mature and develop more and more into the person He wants us to be. Letís read what God said to the Israelites about that.

ìI will not drive them out before you in a single year, that the land may not become desolate...I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and take possession of the landî (Exodus 23:29-30).

God is saying: I hope you work through your problems and weíll do it little by little if you would trust Me because if I were to remove them all, you wouldnít become fruitful. But I want you to be mature, so Iím going to work with you through the problems. God didnít say weíd be immune from them. Not only do we build mature hearts...

2. WAITING ON GOD BUILDS OUR TRUST.

ìWe do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promisedî (Hebrews 6:12).

Donít rush through the seasons of your life; learn to grow in the midst of them because God has a purpose. Men of old all learned how to wait on the promises of God. Sometimes it just seems to us like forever but itís not because there is something being built inside of us in the mean time. One of the best lessons to learn in Godís waiting room is trust.

It was in Hilo, Hawaii when Anna and I started our ministry. I remember the church had nothing and this wonderful lady donated a typewriter. It wasnít a computer; it was a typewriter...with whiteout. Boy, I thought, thanks, it was great. Then I started typing on it and saying to God: ìcome on, we can do better than thisî.  When Iíd do the bulletins, I would have to type it out and glue on clipped-out art pieces. All we had were colored pieces of paper and we didnít have a copier machine so I had to go down to a book store or something and pay like 2 cents a copy. I used to question God on why I had to do it that way. But, now we have copy machines in the office. I cannot tell you how thankful I am. I learned along the way to trust in God when we had nothing and to wait on His promises, and to be thankful for every step of the way. Itís so wonderful!

Q. 3: What are some of Godís promises for your life? What has happened or is happening right now that has/ is testing your ability to trust in Godís promises for your life?

In our upbringing weíre not often taught to trust God. In our culture, if someone says theyíll ìsend us the moneyî we turn around and think, ìIíll believe it when I see itî. In the kingdom of God itís: ìIíll see it when I believe itî. God begins to open our eyes when thereís a trust. God asks us to trust Him even thoughÖ

w        SOMETIMES GOD HIDES HIS PLANS.

So why does He hide His plans? In His eternal wisdom, He knows weíre not ready to have a certain promise disclosed to us. If it were disclosed, He knows weíd be either scared to death or try to make it come to pass on our own. We would probably take short cuts, compromise our faith, our integrity, and morals if we knew. When God revealed to Joseph a little to him about the promises for him, he didnít know how to steward them. Joseph didnít know how to wait, which put him on a long road until God could mature his heart and build his trust.

I know that if God would have showed me, in the beginning of New Hope, the scope of the ministry, I would have been scared to death and would have said ìno wayî! Some people ask me: ìWayne, so did you plan to have things this way?î I would answer: ìNo, I never planned itî. Sometimes itís like a Polaroid picture. God shows us a little bit of His plans and it gets a little bit clearer as time goes by. He knows Heís going to have to hide some things because He knows weíre not ready for it and we wouldnít trust Him. But, as God reveals a little, we learn to trust Him, step by step.

The Bible says that Godís word is a lamp unto our feet. In the old days, the lamps would have a little wick. It was designed to just give enough light for the next step. You would have to trust one step at a time. Sometimes God gives us just enough light to keep us trusting Him. The Bible says: ì...without faith it is impossible to please God...î (Hebrews 11:6).

Letís see what God said about Abraham: ìThen the Lord said, ëshall I hide from Abraham that I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation...íî (Genesis 18: 17-18). God knew that Abraham was going to have a huge future. God was saying: ìShall I hide this from him so heíll trust me every step of the way?î God let him grow and along the way, revealed His promises. God did that with the disciples too. When He spoke to them about the crucifixion, they had a hard time with it. The Lord couldnít even tell them the great significance of the cross: the hope, help, and salvation to people thousands of years later. These disciples were a part of world history and eternal redemption, but they would not have recognized it even if they were told.

ìBut they didnít understand [what] he said. Its significance was hidden from them...î (Luke 18:34 NLT).

Sometimes God hides His plans because weíre not ready to understand it. Thatís why itís so incredibly important to trust Him and the kind of trust weíre talking about isÖ

w        A TRUST THAT PRECEDES or COMES BEFORE UNDERSTANDING.

This kind of trust makes great faith! Itís so easy to see something and then say; okay, now I trust You. However, the greatest trust is the one that says: ìGod, I donít know whatís going to happen, but I will walk with You step by stepî. The Bible calls that ìmountain movingî kind of faith. ìTrust in the Lord with all your hear, and do not lean on you own understanding. In all you ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straightî (Proverbs 3:5-6)

We ask God why and God tells us to trust Him on it so that in the mean time He can mature our hearts. He wants to develop a trust in us that doesnít follow understanding, but comes before understanding. If after I understand something and then say ìI trustî, it doesnít really require faith. The greatest faith is the one that says: ìLord, I donít see, but Iím going to trust you anywayî. Jobís wife told him to curse God and die. But Job waited it out as recorded in 42 chapters. And the Bible tells us that God gave Job back twice as much of everything he had.

And finally, the greatest thing that waiting on Godís promises does is:

3.      WAITING CLEANSES OUR MOTIVES.

Sometimes we just want a god of results: ìGod, I want thisî, ìGod I want thatî, or ìGod, if you donít give this to me, Iím going to stop serving Youî. Inside of every one of us is this ìPharaohî tendency that says: ìOkay, okay, tell God to stop all these plaguesî. When God took the plagues away, what does the Bible say? The Pharaoh hardened his heart again. A lot of us only serve God if we know He will give us things in return and the devil knows this.

Thatís what happened with Job. There was a conversation between Lucifer and God: ìSatan replied, ëWould Job worship you if he got nothing out of it? You have always protected him and...You bless everything he does...But now suppose You take away everything he has ñ he will curse You to Your face!íî (Job 1:9-11). Once again, we know that Job trusted God (recorded in 42 chapters). Job said: ìthough He slay me, yet will I trust Him....î (Job 13:15 NKJ).

Sometimes God makes us wait to scrub the motives of my heart.

Q. 4: If you didnít get any ìresultsî would you still serve God?

Let me close with a story of a girl in Hilo. She was dying from strange disease where her blood was not flowing in her extremities. Then gangrene started causing her fingers and toes to turn black. Her parents were very strong Buddhists, but this girl Anne was a Christian. We had just started in Hilo and she called the church to ask if we could visit with her because she didnít know how much longer she would be around. So, I brought my guitar to sing some songs for her and there were her parents with the Buddhist altar, burning incense. I walked in the house and prayed for her, but I was thinking the whole time: ìGod, just heal her. Heal her so that sheís raised up and her family would turn to You. Yeah, a miracle would be great!î But every time I went, she just kept getting worse and worse. So I sang and prayed longer for her to be healed. I kept pleading with God and crying: ìGod, if You donít do anything else, just heal her. If You heal her, her parents will change.î The next call I got was from the hospital and her mom said she was dying. When I was there, Anne just looked up at her father and said: ìI just want you to know my Jesusî. The father just nodded real cordially. That night she died. I wanted God to raise her up, you know, a bigger miracle. The next week I did her funeral and I was so discouraged because I was serving a God for His results. God confronted me: ìDid you do what I askedî? Yes Lord. ìThen just serve me not out of what you can get out of it, but because You love meî. Lo, and behold, next Sunday, Anneís parents came to church and sat in the back. I preached the best ìfire and brimstoneî sermon I could, and I gave an invitation to accept Jesus hoping they would, but they just left. I just thought they wouldnít come back and the next week they werenít there. But the week after that, they came and I gave an invitation. The first ones to raise their hands were Anneís mom and dad! They came up to me afterward to apologize for not coming the week before. Of course I said it was okay, but they wanted to tell me why. The weekend before, they returned the Buddhist altar to their church and had to tell their priest that they had decided to follow Jesus.

To the day Anneís parents passed away, they were wonderful members of our church at New Hope Hilo. They were the nicest people. When I look back at how I was so discouraged and God scrubbed the motives of my heart by speaking to me: was I serving Him for results or was I serving Him because I loved Him?  I was doing it all for the wrong motives,  but it wasnít until my motives were scrubbed did the promise come to pass.

God is not slow, but He is patient. When we wait on God, our hearts mature, and it builds trust. Sometimes Godís plans are hidden and weíre forced to trust before we understand, but that builds great faith. Finally, waiting on the Lord cleanses our motives so that we serve God even though the ìresultsî are not there yet.

ìThose that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.î...itís a wonderful promise to us.

Mahalo to volunteer writer Liz Texeira, a woman serving God and waiting on His  promises.