Day 3

Psalm 104:27-28 - God is our Provider. The Creator is also the Maintainer. So all that I need comes from my Father. Why am I here? What's my purpose? I can easily get caught up in trying to figure out the very small details of my life and say, "Well Scott, your purpose is to do this or do that." God's Word speaks about the creation of man as the highlight of God's work. Murray says "The one object for which God gave life to creatures was that in them He might prove and show forth His wisdom, power, and pouring forth unto them, according to their capacity, the riches of His goodness and power." My purpose is to be a vessel through which God shows Himself to the world. It's not about ME...wow, go figure! I am to be the recipient of God's goodness and power, and in turn, reflect that onto others by how I allow God to work in me. That seems a little deeper than, "My purpose is to fulfill my dreams", blah, blah, blah. Murray also mentions that Nature will become a "preacher, reminding us of the relationship" with Him. In studying the life of King David, prior to his kingship, I thought about something. What did God see in David's heart that caused Him to choose the shepherd boy as a king. We don't see much at all about David's interaction or relationship with God before he was chosen by the prophet Samuel. But I can only imagine that there must've been something there. Remember, God looks at the heart, while man looks at the outward appearance (1 Samuel 16). Maybe as David sat out in the pastures with his sheep, he simply looked up and enjoyed God's creation. Scripture talks about creation being a witness of who God is. What a great display!! And as my sustainer, God will never disappoint me. May I learn to trust Him and wait on Him each day.

Day 2

Be Still. The words of an old Steven Curtis Chapman song come to mind when I think about being still... "Be still and know that He is God...Be still and know that He is Holy...", etc, etc. What a worshipful reminder about the holiness of God and how we must simply be still and listen. Murray reminds us that God "cannot part with His grace, or goodness, or strength, as an external thing that He gives us, as He gives the raindrops from heaven. He can only give it...as He works it Himself directly and unceasingly." God's demand for us: To yield, consent, wait upon Him. Our true wisdom as feeble mankind is to "wait upon God, fill our heart with faith in His working, and in that faith, pray for His mighty power to come down." How simple, yet hard to do sometimes. Why is waiting so hard to do? Because we don't like to wait. Society tells us that we need it now and we've developed technology and ways to get instant gratification. So waiting for God is really just as inconvenient to our busy lives as waiting for anything else. True waiting requires the power of the Holy Spirit to cause us to be still. It's something that just doesn't come naturally, despite the fact that we were designed to do just that. I've found that in my own experiences, I have to make myself be still. I need to find a quiet place, away from distractions, and just sit...listen...read...pray...and wait. So what about the faith that Murray is talking about. Waiting requires trust, trust requires faith. Our faith reveals our true belief about who God is. The more we experience Him in our lives, the stronger our faith becomes.

Day 1

Psalm 62:1 - "My soul waits only upon God; from Him comes my salvation."
What is salvation? What am I being saved from? The wrath of God is one of those things that we don't hear much about in many churches across America today. Why? Because it sounds too harsh. It makes God seem like a mean dude. If people decide to believe in God, they want to believe in the nice God...the sweet baby Jesus wrapped in golden fleece diapers (courtesy of Talladega Nights).
But if you actually pick up the Bible and read it, you'll find stuff in there about God's wrath against sinful man. And to be quite honest, that's something I'd rather skip out on, even though I know I deserve it. Thank you Jesus for grace. Our salvation is a gift of God through Jesus Christ. And we can begin to experience that salvation when we receive Christ and acknowledge our wretchedness. But ultimately, our salvation will come when we stand before God in heaven and hear "Well done, my good and faithful servant." Boy oh boy, I can't wait to hear that.
Murray describes why we have such difficulty experiencing salvation completely, on this side of heaven: "All the difficulties that are brought forward as keeping us back from full salvation have their cause in this one thing: the defective knowledge and practice of waiting upon God." How does this translate? Basically, we fail to rely on and be dependent wholly on God. We were created to depend on Him for our provision. Our blessedness was to be entirely dependent on God's blessings. So why do we mess that up so often? It's our stinking nature...to think we can be independent. It's not unless we can comprehend our "helplessness and absolute poverty" that we fully appreciate our dependence on God. One of my most favorite lines from the book is found on page 13: "God unceasingly giving and working; His child (me) unceasingly waiting and receiving: this is the blessed life."
Lord, may you be my "all in all" and help me to experience the truly blessed life found only in waiting on You.

Preface

On most occasions that I decide to read a book, which honestly doesn't happen that often, I usually skip right to the meat...Chapter 1. Over the years, I've started a lot of books and finished very few. And more times than not, I skip around reading only the chapters that look interesting. But with Murray's book, I started at the very beginning, to get an idea of why he decided to compile 31 daily devotionals on this subject. And its all boiled down in the closing sentences of the preface. Quotes from the book will be indicated appropriately, but keep in mind, the words were written over 100 years ago, so the language is sometimes a little complex.
"May He use them [the words from this book] to draw us all to Himself, to learn in practice and experience the blessed art of waiting only upon God. Would God that we might get some right conception of what the influence would be of a life given, not in thought or imagination or effort, but in the power of the Holy Spirit, wholly to waiting upon God."
How many times have I convinced myself that I am waiting on God...only to find that I am still relying on my own efforts and power to make things happen. A word that Murray uses time and time again in this book is "impotence". Now in today's society, that word carries a different connotation...but in this context, it breaks down to this: "useless and powerless". Wow, how impotent are my attempts, energies and efforts at bringing about God's will in my own life. It's only by yielding completely to Him and allowing Him to work through me, that I experience true power and usefulness. We'll see this concept more as we proceed.
And off we go. The stage is set for 31 days of remarkable insight into the concept of waiting on God; insight shared with us by Andrew Murray, not insight from me.

Things Change

So I've kinda been fascinated with the idea of Waiting since about mid Spring 2008. I was asked to fill-in preach for a Wednesday night service at my former church. As I prepared for that message, I was compelled to share some of what had been going on in my life for the past 2 years. I had found myself seriously waiting on God to come through... you see, I had "surrendered" myself and my family to serving God full-time, in whatever capacity. At first it was a draw to international missions. Then it became a desire to simply work in some kind of ministry as a career. But nothing was happening. Doors were not opening. And so I waited. And waited. In the midst of this waiting, I began to understand how our experiences really teach us a lot...or better yet, how God works through our experiences to mold us into what He wants us to be. So I stood up and shared about waiting. Then within 2 months, the door of opportunity swung wide open, and we embarked on an incredible journey that took us across town and into the world of church planting. It's been a fun ride!! And here I am with another opportunity to preach. So I naturally went through a few of my past sermons and thought, "Ok God, should I rehash one of these?" And I landed on Waiting. This coincided with the fact that I had just finished reading Murray's book. Admittedly, a 31 day devotional ended up taking me about 45 days, but I finished it. And since I missed a bunch the first time, I'm reading it again. And I've discovered, as I prepare for the upcoming sermon, that what it means to me is something totally different than what it did 20 months ago. So I am excited to see where God leads me with it. Waiting on God is not just about waiting for Him to come through on a prayer request or to open a door that we want open. It's about waiting on Him each and every day, for simple things, for provision, for His guidance and grace. We'll see where we end up in another month.

Why?

I recently finished reading a powerful book written about 105 years ago by Andrew Murray. I am embarking on a 31 day journey to walk through it once again. This time, I'm going to jot down some thoughts as I go. Hopefully, if you happen to stumble across this blog, they'll mean something to you as well. Feel free to leave comments for discussion.