TO WAIT - HOPE - UPON THE LORD AS PRATERFUL MEANS NEVER TO GIVE UP

 

“But those who wait on Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint”, Is. 40:31.

 

1. To await
2. To expect because of the proper reason
3. To prosper in all while waiting
4.  How important it is to carry on doing all, the same way it would be done
5. Not to murmur, for murmuring is not expecting
6. When not to wait

 

 

What does it mean to wait upon the Lord? What kind of person is enabled to do such kind of work? We know that Jesus comes to reap just where we have been sowing during our pregnancy of great expectations upon Him. Yet, we know that all babies are born as soon as nine months. We expect that from nature, we know it so. How much more certain is our Lord than a baby’s coming from a pregnant woman!

Every pregnant woman knows what she is been carrying, knows also that her time is surely coming. Even so, we find Christians all over the world in a pregnant state of heart, yet know not if they will bring out their child to birth, as if the Lord is not able to bring to birth whatever He Himself has been conceiving within!

The main reason why I want to touch lightly on this subject, is because all over Scripture we find this kind of awaiting as a command. There are different reasons why we have to await, but I do not want to go out deliberately upon that. Let me mention some reasons by name and then get on with what is now sprouting from within the fountain of my own heart and soul. We may wait because we are not ready; because we are not holy; because the fruit we have sowed is not ready; because the same fruit (the seed, the watering, etc,) might not be holy enough; we might have to wait because others are not ready, even if we are, have not yet arrived, are disobedient, unholy or even dead already so they will never arrive and God is preparing another King David somewhere you know not of; in all cases we are never to come to deny waiting because that means we have forsaken our Lord and happiness alone. Therefore, we even read in 1Cor. 13:13 “And now faith, hope, charity, these three remain; but the greatest of these is charity”. This word “hope” is what explains it all: to await with genuine expectancy, to hope vividly and truly so – there is no other way to put it forth.

First of all, the word to wait as used in holy terms from the Holy Scriptures, means nothing else than to expect with confidence, to rest assured it is coming. We know any mother waiting for her son she has not seen for a long time, which has pointed out a time to come and visit her, knows out of her own the son is coming. I had been away for more than ten years from my mother and family because of the war in Angola; one day I called my mother in Portugal and told her I would be coming to visit her, for it was God’s will. I did not tell her which day I would come – seeing at the time I would want to surprise her. But as soon as I arrived, she told me “I knew you would arrive today”. I was perplexed seeing I told none at the home I knew not anymore, the day I was coming. I inquired about how she knew, and everybody told me she woke up knowing I was coming that day!

This shows particularly what is this burning within my heart concerning this kind of waiting God expects from us at all times concerning Him and His manifold promises, the ones personally delivered by Him unto the holy mail boxes our chests carry for us deep within; we read in other parts of important Scripture concerning this, that this kind of hoping “does not deceive us”, for it is living and truthful, especially never deceitful, neither deceptive out of devilish premonitions, suspicion upon something, or even presumptions out of an evil, intelligent, stupid or guessing heart, nor out of simple vast knowledge about the Bible – even if all these may surely be good imitators of this simple thing of awaiting expectantly for our sure Lord.

First of all, there is something endangering all of this kind of living awaitfulness of all holy senses: the despair of tiring out awaiting and watchfulness, which carries the power to leave us desperately hungry, which is to say, to have us in need of some kind of fulfillment within. This is where we find Esau exchanging his life for a single plate of food, seeing he is angry of waiting, turning aside to his own self made ways of deception, convenient blackmailing, lying rage which turns us away from all possible reconciliation with God concerning the thing we have exchange life for if we ever negotiate our life for nothing but the food of one single meal! And towards the end of times, more and more people will do the same thing, seeing ungodliness is taking over all the reigns, the ropes which leads the hearts of people all over the world!

God expects of us all without exception and without the exception of the time we may live in, that not only we be awaiting Him because He is delaying on purpose – which we should believe – but that we be watchfully awaiting and expecting Him to come. This is the lesson we get from the ten virgins. We read some of them did not have enough oil to endure the waiting at night, they lacked some power within to endure, especially when someone, besides not loving to wait at all, has the temptation to fall asleep with reason, seeing we are made to sleep at night and when and if we are tired out. There is nothing that entices people more to sleep, tiring them fully out than waiting for a long time. It happens to be more tiring than a hard day’s work, for work tires us out but never touches our senses of watchfulness! This is why God is able to grant us joy in waiting, because joyful people neither feel tired if and when they are, nor want to go to sleep having their joy keeping them voluntarily on their toes and feet, and at the same time out of the sad mood Esau fell into because of having sin within. We know sin is un-love, towards God. This is the main oil we are to have, for it is able to achieve much, the joy of the Lord being our full strength. Have you trouble keeping awakened and out of the bitterness of waiting? Put yourself together and run after whatever the Lord has put into your hands to save you fully!

I find the devil trying constantly at me, having his darts of heaviness pointed out at whatever will bring me my daily joy. The Lord once taught me that I should never fake my joy, for His is always real and therefore I should never fall asleep with a heart which has not solved all with Him, no matter how tired I might be before going to bed. Joy dies down, it does never be kindled automatically, for it is there because of something and it is not there because of something too. Joy is from a fountain. The fountain is always from God. We read in Prov. 4:23, “Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life”. And further we are able to read carefully, “The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they stumble. My son, listen to my words; bow down your ear to my sayings. Let them not depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and health to all his flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Put away from you a wicked mouth, and devious lips put far from you. Let your eyes look right on, and let your eyelids look straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet, and all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right hand nor to the left; remove your foot from evil”. 4:19-27 Give some more and some better attention to these words, do not take them lightly. Burden your heart with them fully and think without loosing your joy, by being too bound to force and unwatchfulness. Drink them and find out whatever they may mean fully: “I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly. Drink waters out of your own cistern, and running waters out of your own well. Should your overflowing spring be scattered abroad as rivers of waters in the streets? Let them be only your own, and not strangers' with you. Let your fountain be blessed” Prov. 5:14-18. This passage is talking about a woman, a bad woman trying to conquer your heart to her bed of death. In fact, many kind of a bed is there in any sin. Any sinning Christian is as good as a prostitute too! Prostitutes entice people to sleep with them wherever they go! Prostitutes have and use condoms – Christians have and use excuses and manifold reasons to drive them into sinning! They believe they are protected having accepted the Lord – where they get that kind of belief from, besides their own minds, I can not perceive!

Now, if you want to maintain your joy, keep your Lord. Do not loose strength at any other case, thing, affair important or not, or distraction, having “your eyes look right on, and your eyelids look straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet, and all your ways will be established” – there is no way out for any child of God besides this: staying close to the Lord by staying so far away from non-waiting sinning as the east is from the west! Sinning will hold you away from the Lord of all joy and the Lord of all strength will surely keep you away from any kind of sinning! The main problem with Christians today is that most of all of them have entertained ideas concerning sinning which the devil alone is able to uphold fully. They do not believe sin keeps us away from God. No wonder they are trying out a joy of their own all over the world again, because they want to believe they are saved, just as Pagans would do, would they have some understanding about the Bible at all! All new doctrines are aimed first to kindle down life by the death of sinning, and on top of that all, building up a joy of its own so as to imitate the real one so as to have people believe they are not lost at all, so they will not feel something is amiss! Remember the “joy out of pure heart” for once! Then, and only then might it be turned impossible to have you to “drift away” through any kind of reason or convenient, convincing reasoning whatsoever! “For this reason we must pay closer attention to the things we have heard, or we may drift away”, from God, from true joy itself! This happens to be the opposite of genuine hope, in practical terms, Heb 2:1. Do not trust your heart at first, at all.

This joy I have been trying to share with you about, is in the first place as light as something you yourself do not bear or carry. It is real, so real one may me astonished by either unbelief or bewilderment, should one come to have it from within in a real manner, overflowing and knowing it is for life! And, how difficult it is to understand the human mind! When they know something as good as this, as strengthening as this is, as real as not even normal thoughts are to you, is for life, that should rather calm people down seeing whatever they got from God Himself is eternal. But no, they go about as if it will go out of them soon, making them wanting to enjoy it fully instead of making full use of it for the strengthening of the inner man continually. Instead of calming them down, leading them to holy fear and to a trustful state of heart by the reality of it all, it seems to blur their mind instead, because of the selfishness of wanting to enjoy things. No wonder the Lord Himself holds back much of what He has promised to them all to have in a continual basis! And without that joy which the Lord Himself is able to hold back from us, we may not stay awakened by holy means which alone are holy enough to keep us in holy expectancy for our Lord. This kind of expectancy is so strong, still so calmly assured, one is not to get anxious at all so one may carry on with the daily duty the Lord has given into our hands before he left, to carry out responsively and fully to the end. It is as if a mother is ironing the clothes of her coming son because she knows he is coming, yet because the clothes are not ready, she is somewhat glad he has not arrived yet for she thinks he will want to wear them all at once! Yet, she feels constrained to go about looking at the window at any sound outside and at the same time keeping up with her loving duty seeing she does not know at what time he will show up at all. Loving mothers always give their hearts to exaggerating little touches on everything they do for their loved ones; this is what loving sons should do towards the Father of Heaven and earth! He surely deserves it much more, even though mothers do never do things because sons deserve, but because they are in a state of heart where love and believed duty comes to mix up, where love takes over always blurring the explanations of whatever they feel to do for them – they just happen never to know how to explain the reason of their love-work! Mothers never know why they do those things, their whole mind being so absorbed with the joy, the fear to be late in preparing things, the expectations of the joy of that moment when he will arrive, in  it all they seem to forget why they do not even think and ponder about to leave whatever they believe to be their full duty to someone else or even to delaying and laziness! The love they bear is so quickened by the joy of the coming son, they seem not to get tired out, lazy, irresponsible or asleep! Oh what joy and love cannot do for you dear Christian! Try loving Him with all your heart and soul and see to it that you believe He is coming as He happens to be indeed! This is not a lie, this hope is truthful and lies not to us.

This kind of joy is quick about duty, yet not hasty; it loves and urges to be perfect in doing so it may be presented in a beautiful shape to the incoming son. Her aim is to have it beautifully done, presentable to the reason of the joy of her own heart instead of having it quickly done! To be hasty is to be selfish – to be quick and perfect in doing is to be loving and expectant at the same time! Many self-loving mothers moan about because they feel they could have been watching some TV lingering around laziness, do some gossiping, or whatever their greater love demands from them and which directly works so against the awareness of their incoming sons, against that kind of normal love they should bear for them at all times. How else are we to have such confidence that enables us even not to “be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let our requests be made known to God”? Phil. 4:6. How unless it is true to us that we just know that “we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, and we also know that we already have the petitions that we desired of Him” when we are still asking? 1Jo 5:15. How else are we to thank Him before having the petitions without being an hypocrite before Him? It is because it is as good as having them , so sure they are! None, though bearing cloths of joy will stay at His feast, without being thrown out to where such belong to, sooner or later with the hypocrites and Pharisees! None without a clean heart will ever be able to experience such joy in prayer as “only the Lord gives”, even though many try coming in at a private, close to them site and fountain, by other means, not through the door because it seems to be closed unto them! Do not believe that man of the earth, for as soon as your heart wishes to be clean, it will start to open up to you without effort from you or any other in the whole world! Try not to be a thief in the presence of God and mankind, rather, climbing to the feast but never through the door. May you be able to sing “God is good unto me” also! It is obvious that those who are able to, those who can and may, wait upon the Lord as they should will always be renewed. They love much, so their strength will always be there, even increasing, for they wait within the bounds of the laws of the land.

We, when reading the parable of the ten virgins, we find it said that the Lord is claiming five of them came short on oil, on inner strength, inner joy to stay awake and aware. Besides, we find that the Lord does not embrace those who are not able to show out joy for His coming upon His arrival, maybe because we happen to be late in our doings, so late at night, when people are not able to fake whatever they feel and say, feeling bad upon having to wake up having not slept long enough to be hypocritical, and seeing they are not fully awakened yet. All these seem to be aware of is that they have no joy in His coming – they are no murmurers against His coming, besides they try not to be have a false joy shown forth as a quick remedy, but rather acknowledge their heart’s full state in chorus, as one single cry out of five mouths. They are not in a state of heart of being hypocritical, but acknowledge on the spot out of shock, at the same time, what their heart feels whatever the real problem is with them all. Even though they were not vivid enough to arrange an explanation for whatever their hearts told them on the spot, no quick excuses, yet they showed forth some willingness to have done better, but too late! They know what their lack happens to be like, the kind, but seem not to know why they lack oil, where did it go wrong, what they did wrong so as to lack the joy of the coming son burning within them.  They did not build on the knowledge of the son. This is where none does things out of wanting to be seen, for sleepiness is always a stronger asset to the sinfulness assets of any sinner; only joy and love will be enabled to drive a heart to such a state of awareness to the end. We read that the Lord told the Church at Ephesus that “But I have against you that you left your first love”. Rev 2:4. And He may say that at any time, even when there is no chance to go back upon reconciliation anymore, too! That was not the case of that church, but may be with you. Rather stop bargaining with the life of your own welfare now, murmuring, so you may be found worthy and acceptable when He arrives out of nowhere. We read that none who murmurs will ever enter the Kingdom of whom they hear will come. Let Him find you happily doing His will, as happy as Sapphira had been to lying to show off good deeds. “Nor murmur, as some of them also murmured and were destroyed by the destroyer”, no lying happiness to show forth either, 1Co 10:10. 

This joy, as is faith indeed (I plan to deal with it separately), is the kind that either you have it or have it not, it being fruit and not a matter of self conception or self-help thing. And the Lord will come at a time when you are not able to arrange a joy and faith of your own quickly trough expert self-confection. Why else did the Lord use the word “CAN” in “if you can believe, anything is possible to those who believe”? There are those who cannot believe, cannot have joy and strength, yet they seem to show off they are able to, lying to all, including themselves and God in person! This is why I believe I know when the Lord is coming: when people are not able to lie to themselves any longer! They will be taken by surprise, He will come when they cannot expect Him when they dare not expect, having the proof of the theft of the joy of their treasure in the hand of the thief – yourself, your lovable sin. Expect Him at that time.

This kind of joy is not there because people have been spending their strength on something else they should not alone – no and yes; the joy and hopeful faith is not there because the Holy Spirit of all joy has not been able to deal and share it with and within them. But mostly, it shows they have been more self assured than prudent, trusting they knew all, so much so that they forgot or delayed cleansing and purification, showing out they must have been slack in being prudent enough against their own beliefs at heart in the beginning of their way, right where they started off they must have been careless concerning those things which are able enough to quench the fire of the spirit, since the Lord say in Is. 1:13, “I cannot endure evil”! They thought they would be able to quickly guess and know when He would arrive. If you cannot have and experience the joy of salvation before you die, there is no chance you will after, for the same heart you may have now will never change through death. We read about “the life that now is” in Timothy and we hear Jesus still saying “My joy I give unto you”, and both of them are not “as the world giveth”. And the heart you have before death accepts and delights itself in certain things alone which the Lord is not to provide for, ever. So, do not expect to be joyful when He arrives, unless you have take pains to have found the way to have your own heart and self changed at any cost. None knows how to change self, for everyone lives with it right through, having learned only how to live with it, from it, and especially how never to deny it and why not too. All worldly businesses will surely bring about weariness of some kind and a single hint of it will never be tolerated by an incoming Lord of Hosts. May the Lord have you doing things according to the list of duties He called you about, announcing His sure coming.  

“Now there is …hope…”. This hopeful expectations is awaiting the Lord, waiting upon Him fully and alone. To hope in genuine terms of truthfulness, is to wait upon the Lord of Hosts. This makes so much part of praying as does the heart of the man who is able to pray, who can pray! This is for whoever has eternal life within, as from now already, for whoever believes has got to have it for real or he would never be able to believe at all. “Whoever believes, has eternal life” – it has got hold of him through Him, the Way to it.  This eternal life has got it all, nothing needed to be added unto it. Its joy will be its strength and oil.