Sit Around by Faith - Continued...

The Temptation in the Wilderness (1898) by Briton Rivière

As strange as it sounds, to sit around is no mean feat. And the longer the wait, the more challenging it gets. To be rendered useless when there is surely work to be done, to be left warming the bench as another warrior falls and the call is sounded for others to take his place in the front-lines – that’s not easy.

In the first part of ‘Sit around by Faith’, we wondered if to be truly useful to God, the wait was somehow necessary. But I’ll admit that is a somewhat hazy place to leave the discussion. So let’s try and carry it forward, shall we?

Yes, many of the greats in the Bible were kept waiting, before the things that they were called for, came to be. But why exactly? To what end? Why the spiritual high of a call or a promise and then the excruciating wait?

While not much is said about the many waits in the Bible, there is one that we do know a bit about – Jesus’s.

If 40 days of waiting in the desert after a public declaration of God’s approval isn’t bad enough, try 40 days of waiting in the desert after a public declaration of God’s approval without food (not to mention having the devil on your back the whole time). Moses has nothing on Jesus there; that’s got to have felt like 40 years! But it’s what happened at the end of the wait that I find intriguing – a series of tests.

Now, much has been said about the three temptations that Jesus had to go through before He could proceed onto His mission. So I hope you would bear with some more being said on it. What God taught me today, was what Jesus exhibited in His three responses.

- In His refusal of bread, contentment in God,

- In His refusal to test God’s faithfulness, confidence in God and

- In His refusal to seek more than what He had been restricted to, at that time, consummation or completeness in God.

In my wait, I feel myself tried to the point of feeling a bit sore by it and it is on these three matters that I am tried the most.

- Contentment – If all you will have is God, will that be enough?

- Confidence – Do you trust that God will keep His promise?

- Consummation – Are you complete in Him alone or do you yearn for more? (However spiritual what you yearn for is, including whatever He has promised/what you have been called to)

The day I can respond to these questions the way Jesus did, that day, I’ll know that I have been made ready and that my wait has ended. But while I’m being made ready, this old phrase echoes in mind at the end of every painful day – The Lord will not deal a single unnecessary blow. I'm convinced that I will not have to wait one day more than is absolutely necessary.

For many of us it is enough to know that there is purpose to the wait. But for those of us for whom that knowledge does nothing, I hope it helps you to know that you are not alone. Not just I and many others with me, but there is One who subjected Himself to the torment of waiting before He went on to do what He was called to. And today, He still waits for what He has been promised by the Father. Chin up, friend – you and I are in good company!

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