Waiting Upon the Lord

The sons of God, the children of God, those who are born of God, are supposed to be led by the Spirit of God. Guidance and direction are part of what God has promised for His children.

This is the Way, Walk in it

God has promised to lead His people in the right way. Yet, it seems that so many struggle to hear what God is saying to them, they strain to understand what the Lord is leading them to do. They don’t know whether to turn to the right hand or to the left. Perhaps we fail to understand His ways, and especially the way He leads us in our lives.

My Thoughts

It should be clear from this verse that the Lord has different ways of doing things than we do. And His thoughts are different from our thoughts. And so, to be led by the Spirit of God, it seems apparent that there must be a change in the way we think about how He leads us.

Walking by Faith and not by Sight

Wouldn’t it be nice to just hear a voice telling us what to do in every situation we face in life? Well, God has promised to speak to us, but if we are not in tune with Him, we may miss what He is saying, we may fail to see what He is leading us to do, though it’s right in front of us.

Having the right attitude of heart and mind is extremely important in hearing what God is telling us to do. We are to walk by faith, and not so much by what we see with our eyes.

Faith believes the promises of God to be true. And that faith in His promises produces an attitude of trust, regardless of what our circumstances look like. And trust leads us to perfect peace.

You Keep Him in Perfect Peace

With a heart filled with the peace of God, it is much easier to hear the still small whisper of the Holy Spirit leading us to go one direction or another.

How do we get Peace?

Casting Your Cares

The way to gain the peace of God is by casting every care and worry to Him in prayer. It is by making our requests known unto Him. And it says that when we do that, then the peace of God, His supernatural peace, a peace that goes beyond all understanding, shall keep and guard our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

We must take our cares, worries, and fears to Him and leave them there. We cannot allow ourselves to continue to carry them in ourselves after we have taken them to Him. We must let go and give control to Him. And that’s called walking by faith, and not by what we see. That’s the essence of trusting in Him.

But They that Wait upon the Lord

This thing referred to as waiting upon the Lord is mentioned in several places in the scriptures. But what does it mean to wait upon Him? It simply means to wait in an attitude of faith and trust for the Lord to give direction and guidance.

This suggests that, if we have to wait, then guidance may not always come immediately. We may need to stand calmly in faith, trusting in God, when the circumstances of life contradict what we are believing.

The Trial of Your Faith

God does not try or test or prove our faith. The circumstances of life try our faith. We are trusting God, our faith is in Him, but the circumstances of life put our faith to the test when they are in contradiction to what God has promised us.

Waiting upon the Lord is calmly waiting for the Lord to give us direction in our situation, all the while fully trusting that He will give us the solution to whatever problem we face.

Open Our Eyes

But often, when facing difficult situations, we fail to see the solution God has provided us. We fail to hear what He is saying. We allow the circumstances to be so big, so demanding of our attention, that we cannot hear the still soft voice of His Spirit.

In Genesis chapter 21, Abraham faces the unpleasant reality that his wife, Sarah, wanted him to cast out Hagar, her handmaiden, along with her son, Ishmael, Abraham’s first son.

And the Bible tells us that the thing was very grievous to Abraham, because of his son. Nevertheless, the Lord told him to do as Sarah wished.

And so, Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael away with a supply of bread and water into the wilderness of Beersheba, where the water eventually ran out and she placed her son under the shade of a bush, fully convinced that she and her son were going to die.

She lifted up her voice and wept. Have you ever been there? Hagar had given up hope. She believed she and her son were going to die, but she just didn’t want to see her son go through that. So, she left him and went a good way off.

Fear Not

Ishmael had spent much time with his father, Abraham, over the years. He had certainly seen him pray to God. And in this moment, he lifted up his voice to the Lord for help. And it says that God heard the lad and He sent an angel to help. It’s fortunate that Ishmael had the faith to pray, because Hagar had given up all hope.

I will make him a great nation. Strangely enough, the Lord had told her the same thing many years earlier, before the child was even born, that he would become a nation and would dwell among his brethren.

She had that promise of God, yet in these adverse circumstances she had allowed herself to forget. If she had remembered the promise of God, she may have kept her faith, and would not have lost hope. God had already delivered her from a similar situation years earlier, and if He did it before, He would do it again.

God Opened the Eyes of Hagar

She became aware of something, something that had been there the whole time. God’s provision for her and her son was already there, but because she had allowed the circumstances to overwhelm her faith, she couldn’t see it. Her eyes were closed to it, as it were.

Open My Eyes Lord

How often is our provision, our answer, our guidance, already there and we fail to see it because of our lack of faith and trust? It was right there the whole time, but she couldn’t see it. Oh , how important it is to cast the cares of our circumstances to the Lord, receive the peace of God, and keep a clear heart and mind! That’s when we can hear what He is saying to us.