A Word in Season: Holy Waiting (Hosea 12:6)

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How good are you at waiting for things? I imagine that most honest people will say that there's more than a hint of frustration and impatience in us when we're looking for something or hoping for something.

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We cannot wait, we say, until something happens or until something arrives.

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But the prophet Hosea tells God's people that by the help of their God they should return to him, observe mercy and justice and wait on your

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God continually. That's to be the disposition of God's people, especially in times of trouble and especially when frustration and impatience creep in.

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It's clear from what Hosea says that people might have been tempted to take matters into their own hands.

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That's often one of the things that we do when we are frustrated or impatient. And in this case it might have required the sacrifice of mercy and justice.

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We can't wait for God to do something, we need to do it for ourselves. We need to take matters into our own hands, we need to make sure that our expected and hoped -for outcomes are secured by whatever means.

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And that's a very dangerous way to think. When we act out of frustration and impatience, too often we go astray.

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We begin to use means that are contrary to or apart from God's appointed means.

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We're trying to accomplish something that may not even be the right thing in the first place.

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And so what is important for us is to wait upon the Lord and to do so continually.

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Again, an older commentator suggests that to wait on the Lord includes all the duties of the first table of the law, those opening statements, those opening words of the commandments of God to his people.

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That looking to him rather than to any other. That relying on him even when he seems far distant or not immediately or evidently present.

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That trusting in him in the midst of all things. That relying upon his holy name.

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That giving to God our time and our energy so that rather than just pressing ahead by our own strength, we are content to have

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God have his way with us and around us. To wait then upon the

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Lord requires that we know him as our God, that we trust his word as it is spoken to us.

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That we rely upon him for the promises that he has made that they will come to pass in his own good time.

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And we need to do this continually. And that may be one of the places where we really have a challenge because we might think of ourselves as patient, but our patience does quickly run out.

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And though we might not now be frustrated, though we might not now be agitated, yet perhaps something else will happen or the situation will change again, some new pressure will arrive, some new difficulty will arise and our readiness to trust in God, our holy waiting, our holy hoping is again threatened and undermined.

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And we have these constant prods that perhaps now I need to do something, now

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God isn't acting, now I need to be the one who is on the move. And still

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Hosea says, do not give in to carnal desires, do not give in to unholy frustrations, don't take matters into your own hands, don't abandon

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God's means because they don't seem to be doing the right thing at the right pace. But by the help of your

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God, remember that he is the God of Jacob, that he's the fear of Isaac, that he is the

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Lord who showed himself to Abraham, that he is the God who has always been faithful to his promises and to his people and that they must not abandon the ways of God, the means that God has appointed, the ends that God has identified, but must go on waiting on our

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God continually. Yes, it is difficult, but yes, it is profitable.

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When we wait on the Lord, he will refresh our hearts. So let's leave aside impatience, frustration, agitation, and look to God, our