Waiting and Working
Bibianna shares how God's Word comforts and challenges her in her waiting.
Are you good at waiting? I’m not the best at it. I’m the kind of person who will press the buttons at the lift or the traffic light multiple times in hopes of speeding it up, when I know it does nothing.
Just last week, we faced some problems with our church’s website and I was frustrated with waiting for some form of technical support. While waiting, I tried to think of ways to solve the problem or work around it. Somehow waiting for an answer made me antsy or it felt like I wasn’t working. I needed to do something constantly, but why? Why is waiting so hard?
We are all waiting in different circumstances. Some of us are waiting on decisions at work that determine the next steps. Others are waiting on a medical diagnosis, the results of multiple job interviews, a BTO, the arrival of a new baby. There are those in our midst who are waiting for things with a less certain timeline—the salvation of loved ones, reconciliation and forgiveness in a conflict with another. Some of us are also waiting alongside others as they wrestle with questions and struggles in life. Christians are also waiting for Jesus’ return, as each day we continue to fight sin and grow in Christlikeness.
In all these circumstances, waiting is hard because we often feel the limits of our control. We love to feel like we have a hang of things, and we can do something to make things better, but waiting forces us to admit that we can’t control time, outcomes, people and even our hearts.
What comfort do we have? As I waited, I was reminded that the Christian knows that God has also left us His Word, not just as a FAQ or Wikipedia for whatever we need answers for. His Word reveals Himself, and beholding Him comforts and also challenges us in our waiting.
GOD WORKS IN OUR WORLD
The opening verses of the Bible teach us that this is God’s world and we are all living in it—“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Gen 1:1)” Many a Bible reading plan would have begun with these verses on January 1, and it is a wonderful reminder for us year after year. Man, with all our technological advancements, is but a created being in God’s world.
We see God’s constant hand at work keeping our world together. Though He set up a system to mark the days, seasons and the entire ecological cycle, He did not leave us to be. His Word tells us that He is very much involved.
And throughout the Bible, we see God’s constant hand at work keeping our world together. Though He set up a system to mark the days, seasons and the entire ecological cycle, He did not leave us to be. His Word tells us that He is very much involved, Psalm 65:9-10 is an example of the God who works in our world sending the rain, providing the grain and causing the harvest. In a country that’s hot and hotter all year round, and with supermarkets that are well-stocked with imported fruits and vegetables daily, we may not be able to relate to agricultural analogies. But His Word reminds us that He is like a tender farmer and gardener, who works hard and is involved to bring about growth.
Isaiah picks up on this theme, as God’s people are rebuked for trusting in everything else but Him as they live in this world. They relied on their might, or the military might of other nations in the face of external threats. As we think about the big things in life—political unrest, climate change, natural disasters—we are reminded that He has not left us alone.
GOD WORKS IN OUR LIVES
God’s work also extends to our lives. And often, we struggle with waiting on God for certain decisions and things. But God’s Word reminds us that the thing that we’re immediately worried about—health, work, marriage—is not necessarily the most important thing in life. Like the paralytic who sought Jesus in Luke 5:18–26, we often ask God for what bothers us on earth, and do not see that He is working for our eternal good!
Psalm 65 actually begins with the psalmist speaking about God as one who acts against his transgressions. In Psalm 65:3, we read, “When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions.” Isaiah 6:7 also shows us that God acts to atone for Isaiah’s sins before he was commissioned to bring God’s message to God’s people—“And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” Indeed, as Genesis 3 shows us, our sin problem is our greatest issue, and the rest of the Bible reveals how God is going to save us from our sins, as it climaxes in Christ.
God continues to work to bring sinners back to Him. And for Christians, He continues to work in us to make us more and more like Christ. As I talk to different ones in our church, I've been amazed by God’s work of conversion, but also His ongoing work of sanctification in our lives. Hearing the conversion testimonies of different members—both young and old—has reminded me again and again that God works in different ways to save us. Salvation is truly a gift from God (Eph 2:8-9).
Hearing the ongoing struggles of members as they seek to trust God by faith now has also been encouraging. I see God working in their lives to put to death the old self and to put on the new. Often, these come in small, seemingly insignificant ways—a casual conversation before service, a random “How have you been?” text message, praying with a church member who I don’t really know at a prayer meeting. Yet God uses these ways to teach me that He is at work in our world, in the lives of His people. When I am tempted to think that God is not at work, He challenges me to see that He is, and I can continue to trust Him to work beyond what I can see and imagine, by faith. As John Piper puts it, “God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.”
The important things in life will be accomplished in God’s time, by God’s power.
As I write, I’m still waiting for some resolution on the issue we face with our website. But even as I work in the confines of this world with its broken systems and deal with how my “work” may not come to fruition, I have also been comforted that God’s work will accomplish its purposes. The important things in life will be accomplished in God’s time, by God’s power. Later on in the book of Isaiah, when things seem dire and hopeless, the prophet writes words of comfort to God’s people to point them to what is to come. In Isaiah 55:1-3, God calls His people who are poor and downtrodden to come, and He will provide for a people who have no money or ability to provide for or save themselves. The comfort comes in learning that God’s Word will accomplish God’s purposes and will prosper in what He sends it to do (Isa 55:10–11).
Our works and words do not have this power, but God can do it! His Word created all things. His Word brings forth life. After all, “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim 3:16)”.
What are you waiting for? What is your waiting like? Let us wait with hope and be grounded in His Word, as we trust that God is working in the world and in our lives.