A Time of Waiting

 No one likes waiting—it’s hard. We say things like, “What’s taking so long?” “What’s the holdup?”  “Don’t they have any competent people around here?” Waiting is uncomfortable. We feel we are wasting time that could be spent more profitably. “I could be doing a hundred other things I want to do.” Waiting, however, is part of life. We wait our turn at the checkout, at the doctor’s office, and in traffic, but most importantly, we wait on God.

Yes, God makes us wait, too. Why would he do that? He does that because we are not ready, so we wait. David had been chosen king but wasn’t prepared, so God had him go through a period of waiting that lasted 13 years. Yikes, we say! David, however, learned to wait. He said, “I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope” (Ps 130:5).

The book of 1 Samuel ends with the death of King Saul. This was the king that the people hoped would deliver them from their enemies, but now he was dead. 1 Samuel opens with these words: “After the death of Saul, David returned from striking down the Amalekites and stayed in Ziklag two days” (2 Samuel 1:1). There is a lot in these words. The Philistines defeated Saul and drove him to suicide. He died an utter failure. The people would have lamented, “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” There is an implied question in the first verse of 2 Samuel, “What will happen after the death of Saul”? If Saul could not keep us safe, what hope was there?

It reminds us of what the followers of Jesus felt after Jesus died on the cross. “but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). Jesus’ shameful, humiliating death dashed the hopes of those who had believed in him, just as the death of Saul had shattered the hope of his followers. Some saw Jesus’ terrible death and Saul’s as God’s judgment.

While Saul was gone, there was one victorious person, David. Any hope in Saul was now gone. The narrator tells us that “David returned from striking down the Amalekites and stayed in Ziklag two days” (2 Sam 1:1). Something was happening even though it didn’t look like it. God was working. Those two days were dark, just as they were when Jesus was in the grave, but on the third day, Jesus arose from the dead. In the story of Saul, on the third day, all the attention will turn to David. The lesson is that when all hope is gone—it’s not—God is always doing something for our good. David would become Israel’s greatest king, and Jesus would conquer death be our eternal king.

 

 

 

Remembering What Is Important

 Scientists say that we never forget anything. How can that be, you say, since we seem to forget a lot? The mind stores what happens, but we do not necessarily recall those things until we are reminded of them. Something has to unlock it.

Repression is a defense mechanism that we all use from time to time. It causes us to deny what is painful. We push down into our subconscious those things we want to forget. People repress feelings of guilt, grief, anger or anything we don’t want to think about. We manage to push the painful to one side in order to get past something very difficult. Oddly enough, sometimes, we repress the good things in life as we learn the habit of repressing the bad—it spills over to the good.

We must be taught gratitude, and then we still have to work at it to keep it fresh. Moses warned  Israel about forgetting: “Be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Deuteronomy 6:12).

Prosperity tends to make us forget the good things God has done for us. We often take our health for granted, but we only have to get sick to be reminded of what we have. We should be thankful if we have a job and a good income. Thank God for the air we breathe. I once got choked at a banquet and could not breathe. A man noticed that I was struggling, so he performed the Helmick maneuver on me, and the piece of meat in my throat came unwedged. I was never so thankful to be able to breathe freely. We take for granted the sunlight, a shelter from the rain, a warm bed from the cold. We need to be thankful for food to eat and our family around us.  

David speaking to himself said: “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits —  who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. (Psalm 103:2-5).

It is a great joy when one remembers our name. R.T. Kendall in (Just Say Thanks) told about a friend who works as a chaplain in a hospital for people suffering psychiatric disorders where a lady walked up and down the hall day after day crying out so sadly, “Does anybody here know my name?

God knows our name, and he doesn’t forget it. Isaiah wrote: “he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine” (Isaiah 43:1). Isaiah again reminds us of this: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” (Isaiah 49:15).