I love the little chorus: “We must wait, wait, wait on the Lord
If we learn our lesson well in His timing he will tell us what to do, where to go, what to say.”

For some time now Shirley and I have had people tell us about the beauty of the red rock mountains in the Sedona area of Arizona and had thought it would be nice to take a drive up around that area. But with all the other activities and commitments it never seemed to be the right time. Last Monday we both felt that we were just going to have to go and do it. We could leave Tuesday morning, take in some of the sights, stay overnight and come back home Wednesday by a different route and still get back in time for the church fellowship dinner and communion service. I had an old tour book so started calling motels to try to get a place to stay. The first two attempts I got an operator message that the number was no longer in service. Finally, on the third try I got a live person and was able to get a room for Tuesday night.

Tuesday morning, with our suitcase packed, we headed north. It was a beautiful day and the scenery was gorgeous. As we neared Sedona we realized we would be going right past our motel. Check in time was 3:00 p.m. and it was only 11:00 a.m., but at least we could see the place and let them know we were in the area.

At the counter we were greeted by the clerk with a big smile. We explained that we knew we were too early to check in, but were driving by and just stopped in to get acquainted. He replied that he would check to see if perhaps the room might be ready. He returned with the news that it was ready and we could check in now. During check in as we explained this was our first visit to Sedona he reached under the counter and presented us with some literature about things to see and places to eat. I thanked him for his thoughtfulness and said that I wanted to show my appreciation by giving him some helpful literature also. As he received the tract and read the title, “The Way Back to God”, blurted out, “This is the very thing my wife and I were talking about last night. She used to go to church, but then stopped, and now felt she needed to get back to God.” He was startled that the tract used the same words his wife had used the night before.

As I shared the gospel with him I could not help but feel a sense of total amazement at how God had brought us to just the right city and just the right motel at just the right time, because he only worked mornings and if we had waited until the 3:00 p.m. check in time he would have been gone.

The next morning he said his wife liked the tract and he would start taking her to church even though he himself was still not interested in religion. He said they had a Bible so I told him to make sure her church taught from the Bible and that we would be glad to send them free Bible study lessons that would help them learn more about the way back to God.

As we traveled a different route toward home, thrilled at the beautiful scenery of God’s creation, we felt overwhelmed also at the beautiful perfection of God’s timing in leading us to bring the gospel to a couple who had just been talking together about finding the way back to God. We were so glad we had waited for God’s time to go to Sedona.

However, when we don’t wait for God’s timing we don’t have a happy ending as king Saul discovered and we read about in 1Samuel 13:5-14.

“Then the Philistines gathered together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the seashore in multitude. And they came up and encamped in Michmash, to the east of Beth Aven. 6 When the men of Israel saw that they were in danger (for the people were distressed), then the people hid in caves, in thickets, in rocks, in holes, and in pits. 7 And some of the Hebrews crossed over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. As for Saul, he was still in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling. 8 Then he waited seven days, according to the time set by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal; and the people were scattered from him. 9 So Saul said, ""Bring a burnt offering and peace offerings here to me."" And he offered the burnt offering. 10 Now it happened, as soon as he had finished presenting the burnt offering, that Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him, that he might greet him. 11 And Samuel said, ""What have you done?"" Saul said, ""When I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered together at Michmash, 12 then I said, 'The Philistines will now come down on me at Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to the Lord.' Therefore I felt compelled, and offered a burnt offering."" 13 And Samuel said to Saul, ""You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue.”(NKJV)

Saul was rejected by God from being king over Israel because when the pressures increased he failed to wait for God to work and took matters into his own hands. In the process he transgressed God’s clear warning in Numbers 18:8 that only the priests were allowed to offer sacrifices.

But why did God have Samuel delay his return while the enemy armies were growing larger and stronger? God tells us in Isaiah 30:18: “Therefore the LORD will wait, that He may be gracious to you; And therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you. For the LORD [is] a God of justice; Blessed [are] all those who wait for Him.” Sometimes God answers our little requests quickly, but at times God waits to answer our cry so we will learn to trust Him more and He will be more greatly glorified. God waits for the problem to get worse. Sometimes the little problem needs time to become a huge problem, one that requires a miracle of God to solve. The greater the miracle the greater glory God receives when He answers. For that reason God pleads with us to wait and not rush ahead of him out of fear that he is not going to help us.

A youth worker used his van to pick up kids to bring to church and to youth activities. It was an old high mileage vehicle and was always breaking down. He had no money for a newer vehicle so he and his wife just kept praying that God would provide a van to carry on their ministry. Time passed and it seemed like there was no hope for a newer van so they decided to go car shopping. They saw a nice van, turned in the old van and signed papers to pay off the newer one by three years of monthly payments. Sunday came. The pastor and a deacon were standing out in front of the church when the youth worker drove into the parking lot. The pastor commented to the deacon that the new vehicle the youth leader had purchased looked like good transportation. The deacon, with a grieved countenance replied that he had driven his new van to church that morning with the plan of giving it to the youth leader, but it looked like he didn’t need it now. The youth leader never did know what God wanted to do for him if he just would have waited.

That is why God keeps repeating to us over and over again: WAIT FOR ME. Listen to God as he pleads with us in the following verses of Scripture:
Ps 27:14 Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!
Ps 37:7 Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pas
Ps 37:9 For evildoers shall be cut off; But those who wait on the LORD, They shall inherit the earth.
Ps 130:5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, And in His word I do hope.
Prov.20:22 Do not say, ""I will recompense evil""; Wait for the LORD, and He will save you.
Isa 8:17 And I will wait on the LORD, Who hides His face from the house of Jacob; And I will hope in Him.
Isa 40:31 But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew [their] strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.
Isa 49:23 Kings shall be your foster fathers, And their queens your nursing mothers; They shall bow down to you with [their] faces to the earth, And lick up the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I [am] the LORD, For they shall not be ashamed who wait for Me."" (I WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN)
Jer 14:22 Are there any among the idols of the nations that can cause rain? Or can the heavens give showers? [Are] You not He, O LORD our God? Therefore we will wait for You, Since You have made all these.
Lam 3:25 The LORD [is] good to those who wait for Him, To the soul [who] seeks Him.
Lam 3:26 [It is] good that [one] should hope and wait quietly For the salvation of the LORD.
Mic 7:7 Therefore I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; My God will hear me. (NKJV)
What more could God say to convince us to wait for Him and not run ahead of Him and miss the joy of knowing how He would have answered.

Why am I so tempted to just go ahead and do it my way? James tells us in chapter one and verses seven and eight of his epistle: “For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” (NKJV)

A double-minded man wants to please God, but he also wants to please himself. However, since pleasing God usually means waiting for Him to do it His way, we often just go ahead and do it our way. Now when God says, “let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord”, God is not saying this out of disgust for our rebellion, but with a broken heart because now He can’t show us how he would have solved it with a miracle. There is nothing in life more exciting than seeing God work, but when we do it our way we have left Him nothing to do. There is no exciting story to tell. When we do wait for Him we have the supreme joy of seeing the awesome ways he works.

When we first went to Chile we were told by the team that surveyed the country to be sure to take a gas kitchen stove down with us. When we arrived and began hunting for a house to rent we asked God to place us in the area where we should begin our first church plant. As we moved into the home God chose for us we discovered that we were located outside the city gas area and the only stove we could use would be electric. So we had to sell our beautiful American made gas stove and buy a Chilean electric stove. The only kind they made had painfully slow burners, no oven thermostat nor glass in the door. We bought an oven thermometer, but there was no way to know what the oven temperature was without opening the door. The oven switch only gave the choice of on or off, so if the oven was too hot you had to turn it off. Later, after opening the oven door and seeing that the temperature was getting too low you could turn it back on again.

Four years later when we came back to the States on furlough we asked God to please give us $500 to enable us to take an electric stove back with us. At the end of the year God had provided for many other needs, but there were no funds either dedicated for a stove nor non-dedicated funds we could use to buy a stove. We realized that some missionaries had gone to Chile with equipment they had purchased on credit and as a result their small monthly check became even smaller due to the payments that had to be sent to their debtors. They were always pitifully poor and we decided that we wanted no part of that kind of financial slavery.

So as we boarded ship for our second term in Chile we were glad to return, but had just a tinge of sadness at knowing we did not have our desired stove aboard with us. We anticipated four more years of chocolate cake that had caved-in, soggy centers and with roast that was either raw or burnt black. The trip was lovely, through the Panama Canal and down the Pacific Coast of South America. As we neared Valparaiso, Chile to disembark I noticed some passengers looking over their freight bill. It was wise to get that bill paid before getting into port so there would be no delay getting into customs. I went to the Purser’s office and asked him for my bill. He smiled and said, “I am sure that if you are supposed to receive a bill you will get it.” Since he was the person who made out and delivered the bills I smiled back and said, “Thank you” and left. As I suspected, I never received a bill. I never had that happen before nor after. God had a special purpose to fulfill.

The Mission board required that before getting approval to leave for the field we had to have $500 on account dedicated to paying our ocean freight. As we rode up to Santiago we realized that we now had $500 in our account we could use to buy a stove, but it was too late because customs would only let us take things into Chile as accompanied baggage. It had to arrive on the same ship with us. Anything shipped down later would be considered imported merchandise and would be charged another $500 duty.

One day we saw a notice in the newspaper that an American military family was being transferred out of Chile and was selling their things. So, filled with excitement, we went to the sale and found that they had exactly the stove we had wanted to bring down with us and were asking $400 for it. Then we discovered they also had an upright freezer for $300. Both were like new since military families are usually in Chile for only a few years. I went to talk to the man who was in charge of the sale and said that we would like to buy both the stove and freezer, and could give him a check for $500 USA dollars on a USA bank. This was a real advantage to him since he wouldn't have the problem of having to buy dollars with Chilean pesos. He went to talk to the family and came back and said: “OK”. We were so excited. We had refused to go into debt to buy a stove to take down with us, but God gave us both a stove and a freezer and He gave us the $500 to buy them with. Another plus was that they were already there in Chile with no added shipping and customs.

When we bought the freezer we had no idea how desperately we were going to need it. It wasn’t until the following summer we found out why God wanted us to have a freezer. We lived at the Bible Institute property which was also the place where summer camps were held. Meat markets were usually open every day and we would daily buy what we needed for camp, but that summer meat was scarce and the markets would only be open occasionally, about once a week, when they had meat to sell. For camp we needed a lot of meat every day for several weeks. With the freezer we were able to buy meat ahead and store it in the freezer to be available as we needed it.

How glad we were that we did not run ahead of God and go into debt to bring a stove with us to Chile. We would have considered a freezer to be a luxury we did not need and could not afford. But God provided ahead of time what He knew that we would need.

God’s ways are so marvelous.

Say it with me, “God’s ways are so marvelous”.
And to not miss those marvelous ways of God what do we have to do?

WE MUST WAIT, WAIT, WAIT ON THE LORD
IF WE LEARN OUR LESSON WELL IN HIS TIMING HE WILL TELL US
WHAT TO DO,
WHERE TO GO,
WHAT TO SAY.