Waiting and Working

Tip! Every one cannot go abroad, or give his whole time to direct work; but everyone, whatever his calling or circumstances, can give his whole heart to live for souls and the spread of the kingdom.

‘They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside Thee, which works for him that waits for Him.'— Isaiah 40:31, 64:4

Here we have two texts in which the connection between waiting and working is made clear. In the first we see that waiting brings the needed strength for working—that it fits for joyful and enduring work. ‘They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up on eagles' wings; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.' Waiting on God has its value in this: it makes us strong in the work for God.

The second shows the secret of this strength. ‘God works for Him that waits for Him.' The waiting on God secures the working of God for us and in us, out of which our work must come from. These two passages teach the great lesson that as waiting on God lies at the root of all true working for God, so working for God must be the fruit of all true waiting on Him. So the great need is for us to hold the two sides of this truth in perfect combination and harmony.

There are some who say that they wait on God, but who do not work for Him and there may be various reasons for this. One example is a person who confuses this true waiting on God (in living in direct interaction with Him as the Living One), and the devotion to Him for the energy of their whole being, with a laziness, helpless waiting that excuses itself from all work until God, by some special impulse, has made this work easy.

Here is another person who waits on God more truly, regarding it as one of the highest exercises of the Christian life, but yet has never understood that at the root of all true waiting there must lay the surrender and the readiness to be completely fitted for God's use in the service of people.

And here is still another who is ready to work as well as wait, but is looking for some great inflow of the Spirit's power to enable him to do mighty works, while they forget that as a believer they already have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them. That more grace is only given to those who are faithful in the little; and that it is only in working that we can be taught by the Spirit how to do the greater works.

Tip! Of all the mysteries that surround us in the world, is not one of the strangest and most incomprehensible this—that after 2000 years the very name of the Son of God should be unknown to the larger half of the human race.

All such, and all Christians, need to learn that waiting has working for its object, that it is only in working that waiting can attain its full perfection and blessedness. It is as we elevate working for God to its true place, as the highest exercise of spiritual privilege and power, that the absolute need and the divine blessing of waiting on God can be fully known.

But then on the other hand, there are some, no, I should say there are many, who work for God, but know very little of what it means to wait on Him. They have been led to take up Christian work, under the impulse of natural or religious feelings, at the request of a pastor or an organization, with only very little sense of what a holy thing it is to work for God.

Tip! Isaiah 64:4 says: ‘God works for Him that waits for Him.’ The waiting on God secures the working of God for us and in us, out of which our work must come from.

They do not know that God's work can only be done in God's strength, by God Himself working in us. They have never learned that, just as the Son of God could do nothing of Himself, but that the Father in Him did the work, as He lived in continual dependence before God, so, and so very much more, we the believer can do nothing but as God works in us. They do not understand that it is only as in utter weakness that we depend on Him, and only then can His power rest on us.

And so they have no conception of a continual waiting on God as being one of the first and essential conditions of successful work. So as a result it is Christ's Church and the world that are the sufferers today, oh, so dreadful! Not only because so many of its members are not working for God, but because so much working for God is done without waiting on God.

Among the members of the body of Christ there is a great diversity of gifts and operations. Some, who are confined to their homes by reason of sickness or other duties, may have more time for waiting on God than opportunity of direct working for Him. Others, who are over pressed by work, find it very difficult to find time and quiet for waiting on Him. These two may mutually supply each other's lack. Let those who have time for waiting on God definitely link themselves to some who are working. Let those who are working as definitely claim the aid of those to whom the special ministry of waiting on God has been entrusted. This way the unity and the health of the body will be maintained; so will those who wait know that the outcome will be power for work, and those who work, will know as will that their only strength is the grace obtained by waiting. This is one way that God can work for His Church that waits on Him.

Tip! Isaiah 40:31 says: ‘They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up on eagles’ wings; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.’ Waiting on God has its value in this: it makes us strong in the work for God.

Let us pray that as we proceed in this study on working for God that the Holy Spirit may show us how sacred and how urgent our calling is to work. How absolute our dependence must be on God's strength to work in us. How sure it is that those who wait on Him shall renew their strength, and how we will find waiting on God and working for God to be indeed inseparably one.

1. It is only as God works for me, and in me, that I can work for Him.

2. All His work for me is through His life in me.

3. He will most surely work, if I wait on Him.

Tip! God’s work must be done in God’s way, and in God’s power. It is spiritual work, to be done by spiritual people, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

4. All His working for me, and my waiting on Him, has but one aim, to fit me for His work of saving people.