They That Wait: Why God's Delays Are Not His Denials

By Rick White

Why does God have us wait? Why cant my prayers be answered the way I want, when I want? Is there a purpose in the delay? There are answers to those questions, and you will find them in Pastor Rick Whites book, They That Wait. The word wait can have several different perspectives, and each one can have a unique purpose. Discover the purpose of your wait within the pages of this book. Learn how God works during the silent times of your spiritual journey.

Mary and Martha said, Lord, if you had only been here. They were looking for a healing, but Gods delay brought about a miraculous resurrection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490886909

Rick White

Rick White has over three decades of service as a pastor. He also has twenty years of experience as an educator, high school principal, and coach. He has a BS in pastoral ministry, a master’s in educational administration, and is completing a master’s of divinity. He has been the pastor of Christian Fellowship Worship Center in Beaumont, Texas, since the launch of the church almost eleven years ago. The church has grown from sixty members to over 600. He is heard daily on the radio program, A Moment of Fellowship.

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Copyright © 2015 Rick White.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-8689-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-8691-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-8690-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015910474

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/30/2015

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1     God’s Waiting Room

Chapter 2     Waiting So God Receives The Glory

Chapter 3     Waiting To Be Stirred

Chapter 4     Waiting For Unity

Chapter 5     Waiting To Be Delivered

Chapter 6     Grow While You Wait

Chapter 7     Waiting and Warfare

Chapter 8     Waiting and Warfare

Chapter 9     Wait Training

Chapter 10     Take The Long Way Home

Chapter 11     Two Strikes, You’re Out

Chapter 12     The Grand Finale

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank my wonderful wife, Susan, and my children – Jordan, Chase and Luke. All of you make me look like a better husband and father than I really am. To the staff and congregation of Christian Fellowship Worship Center, it is an honor to build the Kingdom with you. To Nancy Thomas, a good friend and a great editor. To all those friends who have waited with me through good and bad times and stuck around long enough to see the promise. And to my mother, Elner.

INTRODUCTION

They That Wait

Wait is a four-letter word. I do not like to wait. The world we live in has conditioned us to move fast. We admire the movers and shakers and the people who can make things happen overnight. We have made fast-food a multi-billion dollar industry. Every other commercial on radio and TV is about losing weight fast. We can get rich quick by investing in just the right opportunity. Quickness has become synonymous with productivity. We can communicate around the world in seconds. We can get things done faster now than at any other time in the history of mankind. Corporate America now judges CEOs by their quarter reports rather than annual reports. It even seems like our bodies recover from surgery faster today than ever before. Consider how quickly our feelings can erupt when someone gets in front of us in the express lane at the grocery store with fourteen items instead of the allotted twelve. Our world is on the go and going faster every day. Surely God will change His answers to fit our prayers and the fulfillment of His promises to accommodate the pace of our modern society! Was that last sentence a question or a declaration? If it is a question, the answer is no, but if it is a declaration, don’t bet the farm on it.

God answers prayer in one of three ways: yes, no, or wait. I understand the yes answers very well; in fact, I enjoy those answers. Sometimes I understand the no answers, but I don’t enjoy them as much. I don’t understand why I have to wait and I know I don’t like waiting. Nevertheless, I have discovered that waiting is one of several powerful tools in God’s workshop.

In the midst of all this hurry and rush, we pick up our Bibles, that tool used to build lives, to read a few verses before we hurry off to work. The passage for the day just happens to be from James, "Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. (James 5:7–8 NIV emphasis added) Be patient? Wait? God feels the need to tell us four times in two verses to be patient and wait. In fact, God felt the need to address the issue of waiting, tarrying, or being patient approximately three hundred times in Scripture. OK, I don’t need a ton of bricks to fall on me; I can take a hint. Waiting on God is important; it’s not fun, but it is important.

Since waiting is important to God, it should be important to me; thus, I should learn about waiting. Perhaps the best way to learn about waiting is to look at the lives of some people who have waited on God. I propose that you and I look into His Word together and discover the power of patience and the blessing of waiting. Don’t worry, I promise not to mention that verse about a thousand years as being a day in the eyes of the Lord. But, we are going to look at Joseph, who waited thirteen years in prison, Noah, who waited one hundred twenty years for something the world had never seen before, and then there is Job. Job! (I know some of you who are just browsing through this book in the book store and saw the reference to Job are now putting the book back on the shelf, but please don’t, I have children that I need put through college). We will also look at Paul, Abraham, Sarah and a few others, who found out that waiting on God’s promises is well worth the effort.

While we are looking at the lives of people who had to wait, let’s also look at the word wait and see how it is used in Scripture. There are several different Greek words used in the New Testament for waiting. One of those words, ekdechomai, appears five times, each time having a different application. In John 5:3, we see that sometimes God causes us wait so that no one else or nothing else can get the glory. Paul waited in Acts 17:16. There we discover that waiting can stir our souls. In 1 Corinthians 11:33 we see that God will have us wait so that unity can occur. The first verse of 1 Peter 3 shows us that at times God Himself waits. In that same passage, another purpose of waiting is so a vehicle of deliverance can be built. Lastly from James 5:7, the writer of the epistle shows that waiting allows for a time of growth.

Thus, the five purposes of waiting are for:

1) The Glory of God

2) The Stirring of our Souls

3) Unity

4) As a means of Deliverance

5) Growth

God can use waiting to produce more blessing in our lives than the five mentioned here. But, it is this one Greek word, ekdechomai, that I want us to study and understand its different applicants in our lives.

Ekdechomai is a compound word. Ek, the first part, means the place from where something started or the point of origin. Dechomia completes the compound word and means to receive, accept and take, look for, expect. The two parts together give us the interpretation and declaration: I will wait from the beginning to the end with eager expectation and accept that which comes from God, for I know what God begins, He will complete.

For many of us, waiting on God is not an academic exercise or theory. It is real life, and sometimes real life is a struggle. This book is the journal of a journey I experienced, the lessons revealed to me by a loving God and an ever-present Holy Spirit. This journal did not start out to be a book, only a personal record of the path toward a promise. Has God promised you something? Maybe the promise is the salvation of your prodigal child; maybe the fulfillment of a dream, the reality of a calling, or a desired job. It could be that you received the promise last night, last week, last month, or last year and you are still waiting. Don’t worry and don’t give up, it is too soon to quit; as James states in Chapter 5:7–8 …the Lord is coming… He is on the way with that promise in hand. It will happen, and the deliverance will come. The blessing will arrive, and it will be right on time. Read on and discover why the prophet wrote, They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.(Isaiah 40:31 NKJV)

Questions for Reflection

* Are you waiting on something from the Lord right now? Write it down with today’s date

* Commit your wait into the hands of a faithful God

* Why do you think God does not immediately give us everything we pray about?

* While you are waiting, what is the most difficult part, what is your biggest struggle?

* Have you watched or walked through a waiting period with another person-perhaps a friend or family member? What did you observe? What things encouraged them? What things discouraged them?

CHAPTER ONE

God’s Waiting Room

Our society has lost something of great value- the waiting rooms in the maternity wards of hospitals. The maternity floors of hospitals today no longer have waiting rooms. Don’t get me wrong, I really loved being there when my children were born. However, there were a few things that probably would have gone better for me if I had been down the hallway.

For starters, I have sympathy pains when I visit people in the hospital. If the person I am visiting has had back surgery my back begins to ache. If the patient has a broken leg, my leg starts to hurt. You can