A Deep Dive Into Humility - Part 13: Waiting On the Lord
August 18, 2022 | by: Dale Thiele | 0 Comments
Posted in: Pastoral Encouragement
I asked John Piper once what book has had the most impact on his life and thinking. His response has left a lasting impact on me. He said, “It is not so much books that have had the greatest impact, but sentences.” It is a sentence that our minds can memorize and meditate upon. It takes only a sentence to open us up to a new perspective or idea. So, I have watched for such sentences over the years in my reading and studies.
I stumbled upon one this past week. I have been reading a new book by Mark Jones called Knowing Sin. Jones spent time studying under J.I. Packer. He caught Packer’s love for the Puritans, and has desired to follow in Packer’s footsteps in communicating deep theology in an accessible manner. Jones wrote Knowing Christ, seeking to imitate Packer’s Knowing God. This year Jones published Knowing Sin.
In a discussion about the Bible’s diverse vocabulary to speak about sin, Jones comments on Proverbs 19:2, which says, “Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.” Jones follows up by stating, “The hasty person sinfully ‘rushes into things’ by acting without thinking, which is a form of pride. Pride is at odds with patient waiting on the Lord” (53). This last sentence is what caught my attention. “Pride is at odds with patient waiting on the Lord.”
This sentence brings us back to our Deep Dive Into Humility. I highlighted a while back that C.S. Lewis wrote, “Pride leads to every other vice.” We can say the counterpart is also true: Humility leads to every other virtue. I never dove deeply into the practicalities of how humility leads to other virtues. This sentence from Jones, however, emphasizes the importance of humility for our waiting on the Lord. Let me draw this out.
There are two components to waiting on the Lord. First, one must yield to God’s timing. When you wait in the doctor’s or dentist’s office, you are yielding to the doctor’s timing to see you. The same concept applies to waiting on the Lord. If we believe the Lord is working “all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11), and, therefore, will wait up him and his plan, we will yield to God’s timing. This takes tremendous humility. We don’t typically like to wait. We will complain if we perceive if we are waiting too long. In those moments, our pride is winning. We begin to think too highly of ourselves. We presume we deserve better or more attention. We judge others as delinquent in their duty to us. To yield to someone else’s timing takes great humility. We must not think too highly of ourselves. We must consider the other more significant than ourselves. We must not look only to our interests, but also to the interests of the other (see Phil. 2:3-4).
Waiting upon the Lord requires the humility to recognize He is greater, and wiser, than me. I must yield to his timing.
The second component to waiting on the Lord is the dependence upon God’s strength and provision. I will wait for my dentist because I know that I cannot care for my teeth as only the dentist can. We are called to wait on the Lord because we cannot meet our needs as only the Lord can. This also takes great humility. We must be willing to admit our weaknesses and incapability to meet our own needs. That is not the human way, let alone the American way. So much of our sense of worth and value to others depends on our self-sustaining abilities and independence. To wait on the Lord is to say, “I can’t do this. I have nowhere else to turn. The Lord is my only hope.”
Some of the most beautiful promises in Scripture are made for those who wait on the Lord. Isaiah 40:31 says, “They who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” And Lamentations 3:25 says, “The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.” So, let’s say with the psalmist, “I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope” (130:5).
To wait on the Lord is to be humble.
