“Waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one’s thoughts.” – Elisabeth Elliot

One of the funniest movies I ever watched during my college years was the 1987 hit, “The Princess Bride”, a fairy-tale with a modern buffoonish twist.

The story is told with a cast of remarkable and unforgettable characters among whom is the mercenary villain, Vizzini, played by the unforgettable Shawn Wallace.  Wallace’s over-the-top performance, coupled with his easily recognizable high-pitched voice, and memorable dialog quips such as “inconceivable”, makes him one of the many villains in the movie you love to hate.

There’s a point in the movie when the group is on the run from the “Man in Black” that, in a rash of impatience, Vizzini turns to his two cohorts in crime, Inigo Montoya and Fezzik; and yells in his high-pitched annoyed voice, “I’m waiting?!”

His reaction to their sluggishness came with a lilt in his voice; said with a line dripping with sarcasm as only Wallace could deliver it.  His reaction always made me laugh, whenever I dare to re-watch that movie.  There’s just so much annoyance, frustration and mockery extant in those two little words.

“I’m waiting?!!!!”

I often hear those words in Wallace’s own voice returning to my mind when I’m waiting for a slow-poke to make a right-hand turn, or standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, or even waiting for my computer to make up its mind when clicking on an application.  “I’m waiting?!”

What is it about waiting we just don’t like? 

I often think behind those words is the prideful attitude, “How dare you make me wait?  Don’t you know who I am?”  Which makes me wonder, is our dislike for waiting due in a large part to our own secret belief in our own inflated self-importance?  Perhaps.

But I do know this, we do an awful lot of waiting in life.  So says Wayne Stiles in his book, Waiting for God:  What to do when God does nothing?

He writes, “I began to make a mental note of all the reasons we wait:  Stoplights, waiting rooms, suppertime, difficult meetings, paydays, slowpokes in the fast lane, slowpokes in the slow lane, anticipating meeting someone we admire, a child’s athletic practice, a person who needs to change but who stays blind to their faults, weekends, inspiration to write, that first kiss, those lab results, just the moment to have a hard conversation, someone to take a breath so others can join the conversation, tax refunds, gardens to grow, investments to grow, Christmas morning, the mail, delayed airplanes, fast food, and public restroom lines.  The list ends only when life does.”[1]  

Currently, my life is in a holding pattern as I’m now in a place as a pastor that I’ve been in before, between church ministries.  My previous one came to an end, and here I sit, hanging on until God changes my circumstances and sends me on to the next place of ministry.

Honestly, there are tremendous benefits to this kind of waiting.  It allows one to do a bit of exploring in other vocations; meeting people and facing situations and opportunities one wouldn’t ever have, had God not reshuffled the cards in the deck that is my life.  That doesn’t make it easy, however.  Uncertainty gives birth to all kinds of answerable and unanswerable questions.

“Why am I forced to wait?  Why am I forced into this situation, again and again, when others I know have never had to face such a thing?  What is God saying about me, about my life, my ministry? Why must I wait?  What could possibly be taking so long?”

There are several temptations one faces while waiting:

• The Temptation to feel we are being overlooked or mistreated, even by God.
• The Temptation to wonder if God is as good as we’ve been led to believe?
• The Temptation to believe we’ve displeased God to the point that he is withholding his goodness from us.
• The Temptation to wonder if prayer really makes that much of a difference?
• The Temptation to lose heart altogether and not to persevere to the end.

So why does God make us wait?

What should we do when it seems like God is doing nothing?  Well, we ought to be encouraged by the fact that many of the godly people we find described for us in Scripture were people whom God made to wait.  The Apostle Paul, for all of his ministry life, dreamed of taking the gospel to Rome, and yet God made him wait for that dream to come true until he was led inside of it as a prisoner in chains.  Joseph promised by God in dreams that he would be a star to which all his family would bow; made him wait as a slave in Egypt and then as a prisoner before that reality was realized.   Hannah waited for a son; Habakkuk waited for justice; Jeremiah waited for release; the Prophets waited for fulfillment; the Disciples for the coming of the Spirit and Simeon for the baby Messiah.

By reviewing all of this Old and New Testament history, a pattern emerges:   To walk by faith, often you must be willing to wait in patience.  Walking involves waiting because waiting involves believing.  If you do not have to wait, then there’d be no need to exercise your faith, for this is the essence of faith itself,

“Now, faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.  This is what the ancients were commended for.”  Hebrews 11:1-2

When we read of the remarkable people in biblical history who hoped and waited for God to fulfill his promises, what stands out is that, when you walk by faith, you join a company of extraordinary men and women whose lives speak into future generations about who God is and what he can do.

One day my children and perhaps my children’s children will sift through the remnants that were my life in some dusty old attic somewhere.  And what will they find?  Amid all of those leftover trinkets, treasures, pictures, and mementos that represent the balance of my life, I can’t help but wonder now, will they find my faith still speaking?

One person from antiquity whose faith still speaks to us today is Abraham.  The writer of Hebrews writes this in chapter eleven, verses 11-12:

“By faith Abraham, even though he was past age – and Sarah herself was barren – was enabled to become a father because he considered him to be faithful who made the promise.”

Abraham and Sarah were facing the impossible!  Like most married couples, they wanted children and not just for the usual reasons.  In those days, a man needed an heir to pass his name and his inheritance to; they needed a son to ensure that the patriarchal line of the clan endured into future generations.  Therefore, Abraham needed a son for the family to survive.

Now, although Sarah was a beautiful vivacious woman, she was physically unable to have children.  The Bible describes her as being barren, and she had been so her entire adult life!  Now, in that culture, it was considered a reproach; a curse from God, for a married woman if she couldn’t get pregnant.  This is why Sarah succumbed to an old Sumerian practice of using a surrogate to produce children.

By the time God showed up in the form of a theophany, Abraham and Sarah had been living in the Promised Land some 50 years.  And although they had a child through Hagar, both seemed to have resigned themselves to the fact that Sarah would never have a child of her own.  Yet, God had made a promise…but they had to wait many years before they saw that promise fulfilled.

Yet, when God finally broke the good news and told Sarah and Abraham that they were going to have a child by her.   Now in her 90’s, Sarah laughs it off as a ridiculous notion!  Why?  Because Abraham’s body was “as good as dead” pro-creatively speaking!  Things didn’t work anymore! It was too late!  It seemed in his waiting, God may have waited just a bit too long!

And just when you think it’s never going to happen…God shows up…right on time; a year before Isaac is born and tells both of them:  “Hey guess what?  Good news.  A year from now Sarah’s going to give birth to a son!”  And what do they do? How do they react to this impossible promise?  Their reactions are quite different:

Sarah laughs…but Abraham believes. 

And it was faith like that which made it possible for Abraham to become a dad…even in his old age.

So what can we learn from Abraham’s example?    

1^st Principle:  Living by Faith means that you must believe that God is bigger than the impossible problems that you’re facing.

Certainly, Abraham and Sarah were surrounded by impossible problems when it comes to having a child of their own, and you see them there in our text, which is why Sarah laughed!  “After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?”

Essentially, her reaction was this:  “Really Lord?  You’re going to wait until now?  You’re going to wait until everything is saggin’ and dragin’ before you make us parents? I find that kind of funny.”

“Why are you laughing?” Asked the Lord.  She was laughing because from a strictly human perspective having a child when your 90 just doesn’t happen; she’s laughing because her problems loomed larger than her God.

Then the Lord asks a question, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”

Now that’s a deeply convicting and soul-searching question, isn’t it?  Perhaps God makes us wait to help us truly discover what we really believe about God?  Is he good or isn’t he?  Is God, the God of the impossible, or isn’t he?

What if the greatest theological questions in life we could ever discover; cannot be discovered unless we have been made to wait?

Is God good?  Does he fulfill his promises?  Is there anything too hard for the Lord?  These are extraordinary questions!

Are you willing to wait for an answer?

2^nd Principle: Living by Faith means that you are content to wait for God’s perfect timing.

God could have intervened far sooner in Abraham’s life to bring about what he promised, yet God made him wait.  Why? It seems clear that God waited until it was humanly impossible; he waited until anyone who looked at the situation would’ve been convinced from a human perspective, that Sarah would never have a child!  He waited until it was humanly and biologically impossible.  And then…God moved and did the remarkable!

Has it ever occurred to you that sometimes God waits until things are humanly impossible; until there is no other possible explanation for why something has occurred other than for God to make it so?

In other words, says Stiles, “waiting on God is inseparably bound to our belief in the sovereignty of God to bring about the good he promises.”  If we firmly believe that nothing happens without the workings of Providence to make it so, then waiting becomes easier, since our hope is not in our own intellect or abilities but in a smiling providence who works his sovereign will.  Therefore, we can rest.  Rest from worry; rest from the exertions of our own self-made plans for our hope is not in ourselves, but in him who works all things to our good.

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sov’reign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

–William Cowper

[1] Waiting on God:  What to do when God does nothing? By Wayne Stiles  Baker Books:  Grand Rapids, MI  Copywrite 2015  p. 14