Waiting...

"Yet those that wait for the Lord will gain new strength,

they will mount up with wings like eagles,

they will run and not get tired,

they will walk and not become weary."

(Isaiah 40)

(This last year has been a bit different for us at Tulare Community Church.  We have been searching over a year for a new head pastor and are still waiting.  During this extended search process I was reminded of what it means to 'wait for the Lord' from a Hebrew perspective.)

We don't like to wait; it is inconsistent with our culture.

Ask anyone who has had to wait 10 minutes in the drive-thru lane for 'fast' food.

Have a question you need answered?  Google it and get an immediate response.

Send a text and expect a return text right away.

We have become people who not only don't like to wait but we've become people who don't know how to wait.  Perhaps that's because in our Western way of thinking we tend to think of waiting as passive, not accomplishing anything; being inert; time marching on while we are missing out on the parade.

The prophet Isaiah, speaking of those who 'wait for the Lord', had an entirely different concept in mind.

In Hebrew the word for 'wait' (qavah) comes from the same parent word as 'cord' (tiqvah) like the scarlet cord that Rahab hung from her window as a sure sign that she would be saved (Joshua 2).   'Waiting' then has a sense of "binding together by twisting, with the outcome of being strong, robust; to expect...it carries a notion of binding fast.  To collect, a collection of fibers".  (Gesenius Lexicon/Complete Hebrew Dictionary of Old Testament Words).  

The idea of  'waiting' in Hebrew is definitely not passive!  It is not sitting back without hope.  There is something going on in the waiting. 

 When we wait for Him, God uses this time to bind us fast to Him.  Just as a cord is made strong through twisting, pulling and tugging to bring any loose ends in close and tight, we too are made strong as we wait for the Lord.  Perhaps the process is painful for us, all that twisting and pulling and binding.  But the result God wants is that during those most difficult times in our lives - those times of waiting for Him - we would be so bound to Him that we would not unravel, that we would have new strength; that we would mount up with wings like eagles, and we would run and not grow weary.

As we wait for the Lord to reveal who He has selected to shepherd His church, may we lean in strong to Him and each other, allowing the binding to strengthen and unite us.

"Two are better than one...

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."

(Ecc. 4)