Waiting On The LORD When It's Not Looking Hopeful
Luke 1
5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.
6 And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
7 And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years.
8 And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course,
9 According to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord.
10 And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense.
11 And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
12 And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.
13 But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.
14 And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth.
15 For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.
16 And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God.
17 And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
18 And Zacharias said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years.
19 And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings.
20 And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.
21 And the people waited for Zacharias, and marvelled that he tarried so long in the temple.
22 And when he came out, he could not speak unto them: and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple: for he beckoned unto them, and remained speechless.
23 And it came to pass, that, as soon as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to his own house.
24 And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived, and hid herself five months, saying,
25 Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men.
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Waiting on the LORD in the best of times is not easy let alone when it is, by all human means, utterly impossible for the solution or the thing desired to happen.
Many of God’s people over the centuries have, rightly so, put their trust and hopes in God to do that which only He can do. At first, it is exciting to wait in anticipation for God to reach down from heaven and act on our behalf. It’s a time of growth, excitement, and hopeful anticipation.
But … and there is a but …
God doesn’t always perform on cue as we hope or expect. And when He doesn’t, it’s easy for our faith to take a nose dive into the realm of disenchantment with God. After all, the Bible is full of stories relating how God came to the aid or rescue of His people when they needed Him most. However what we fail to realize that sometimes God’s people had to wait a loooooooong time for Him to act and … sometimes He did but sometimes He didn’t.
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What then do we do when faced with the possibility that God might not step in and intervene on our behalf? I suppose the normal and natural response is to wonder, question, doubt or … just plain ‘ole be confused.
And that’s OK … but …
Somewhere along the way God’s people have come to believe and expect that God is our on-call, on-demand God. Modernity in the Christian realm has painted God as a God that hops-to when we call upon Him. And when He doesn’t, our faith starts to erode ever so slightly until, if we’re not careful, we’ll want to just “chuck it all.”
That’s when we need to be careful. That’s when our adversary the Devil will seize his opportunity to pounce on us. We can’t allow ourselves to be such easy targets for his wiles.
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God hasn’t abandoned us in our times of difficulties. But God also, might not always seem to be around when we need Him most. What’s up with that?
Here’s what’s up with that.
God is in the business of testing His people because He knows we need some toughening up. Without times of testing we grow fat, dumb and very out of spiritual shape. It takes work to build up our spiritual muscles for the type of warfare that Satan engages us in. And unless we’ve been strengthened ahead of time, we’ll wilt like a flower that hasn’t been watered.
We need God to grow us, strengthen us, develop us, mature us into what He wants us to be for His service and His glory and … not for our good-time-no-problems Christian life that we in America have come to expect and demand.
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Zacharias and Elisabeth waited upon God for a long time to have a child. To all outward appearances, and to everyone’s expectations, the time had long passed them by for child bearing. And on top of that, poor Elisabeth was barren. A barren womb and time passed by didn’t seem to bode well for them.
But I get the feeling in reading this passage that, though they may have given up on having a child of their own, they stayed faithful to God for many many years anyway. They didn’t turn bitter and give up on God. Sure they were sad at not having their own child. We can all understand the difficulty they had in coming to terms with that. But they did and they remained faithful to God until …
Out of the blue, while faithfully serving God, an Angel is dispatched to bring Zac the good news that his barren and well-stricken in age wife was going to have a baby … incredible as that must have sounded.
And they did have a child … and it wasn’t just any ordinary child either. In God’s timing He brought into existence John the Immerser. Amazing!
But here’s something interesting to note:
They didn’t live to see their own son beheaded. Born so late in their life as John was, they were spared that pain. I want to think that was God’s mercy to them. No parent wants to outlive any of their children let alone see one of them beheaded.
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For sure, we don’t always understand why God doesn’t step in and do for us when and how we want Him to. But we need to have enough faith in the God that saved us so as not to lose heart. Yes, you will at times question and be discouraged. How can we not? That’s normal. But, we can’t give up on God or grow sour toward Him. He has a plan and a will for our lives. And He has a plan that He is working out for all mankind. Our role in and through it all is to:
Do just what Jesus told the lawyer to do in Matthew 22:
35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
When we allow ourselves to overly focus on ourselves it’s easy to lose the bigger picture of God’s purpose for us while we live out our lives on this planet.
Whether God does for us or doesn’t do for us, we’re still called upon to love Him and to love our neighbor. It’s in the acts of our obedience that God’s presence and blessing are to be found. We’re responsible to obey Him as we’re told in the Word while at that same time leaving our lives and everything else in His loving hands.
Just like Zacharias and Elisabeth did.
Even when It’s Not Looking Hopeful.