Grow in Patience (by Waiting on God)

Wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ...

Jude 21

The people who bring menus to your table at a restaurant are called waiters or waitresses. They have no other agenda but to wait on you. They take your order, bring your food, and then make sure everything is all right.

Some people think God exists to wait on us, but the Bible tells us that our calling is to wait on Him. The purpose of our lives is to make ourselves wholly available to Jesus Christ, the guest of honour, who has come into this world.

Maybe you’ve had this experience. You go to a restaurant, and every time the waitress comes to your table, she wants to tell you another episode from her life. That’s inappropriate. The waitress is there to serve the guests. No one would be surprised if her manager soon let her go.

Jesus is the perfect model of waiting on God: He delights in the will of the Father, and He’s ready to do it even when it involves a cross. He says, “Don’t expect a trouble-free life. Expect joy and disappointment, pleasure and pain, unfathomable mysteries, unanswered questions, unresolved problems, and unfinished business. Will you take up your cross in all that and follow me?”

Think of the great disappointments of your life—the heartfelt prayers not yet answered, the great longings of your soul not yet satisfied. You can think of every one of these as invitations to come into God’s gym. He is saying to you, “You want this to be over. I want to make this useful.”

Evaluate your love for God. Are you moving toward or away from Jesus’ perfect model of waiting on God?