Waiting on the Lord
by C. I. Scofield
"But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their
strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be
weary; and they shall walk, and not faint" (Isa. 40:31)
Let us confess
at once that these blessings are not usual in the lives of Christians. As a
matter of fact we run and are weary, we walk and do faint. The wings of our
soul do not habitually beat the upper air. On the face of it, it is very
simple. There is a condition entirely within the reach of every Christian,
whatever may be his age or environment, and then resultant blessings made sure
by the "shall" of Almighty God.
If there is one condition thus
performed, the resultant blessings are sure; obviously then the absence of the
blessing proves that we do not meet the condition. Perhaps we have never
stopped to read it very carefully. We like certain promises of Scripture
largely because we feel there is something strong, beautiful, and triumphant in
them, but we do not really consider what they mean. What does the Scripture
mean by "waiting on the Lord?" Everything hinges on that. It is the sole
condition. First of all, waiting upon God is not praying. Praying is
petitioning God for something. Praying is "supplication with thanksgiving"
(Phil. 4:6). It has its own great and unique place in the Christian life, but
it is not waiting upon the Lord.
Three Hebrew words are translated
"wait" in this connection, and three passages may serve to illustrate their
meaning.
"Truly my soul waiteth upon God" (Ps. 62:1). The literal
translation of this is, "Truly my soul is silent upon God." That is not prayer;
it is not worship. It is the soul, in utter hush and quietness, casting itself
upon God. Take another illustrative passage. "These wait all upon thee; that
thou mayest give them their meat in due season" (Ps 104:27). Here the word is
the same, but it implies both dependence and expectation - a faith that
silently reaches out to take hold upon God, and which has its expectation from
God. Then "Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates,
waiting at the posts of my doors" (Prov. 8:34). The thought here is of a
servant and his master. He has no service just at that moment, but he "waits"
at the door knowing that at any moment the door may swing back and the master
may say, "My servant, go; do this or that." It is the attitude of readiness, of
obedience.
Now I think we are ready to gather these passages into a
definition of what waiting upon God means. To wait upon God is to be silent
that he may speak, expecting all things from Him, and girded for instant,
unquestioning obedience to the slightest movement of His will. That is waiting
upon God. All the spiritual senses alive, alert, expectant, separated unto Him,
His servant and soldier - waiting. It is not the waiting of an idler; it is not
the waiting of a dreamer. It is the quiet waiting of one who is girt and ready,
one who looks upon life as a battlefield and a sphere for service, who has one
master and but one, to whom he looks for everything, from whom alone he expects
anything. This is waiting upon God according to Scriptures.
Now,
glorious blessings depend upon this attitude toward God. Are we waiting? Are we
silent upon God? Is our expectation from Him, or from ourselves, or from the
world? If our expectation is truly from Him, and we are willing to yield Him an
immediate obedience, then we are waiting upon God. Then the four blessings of
the text must follow, because God says they shall. Let us look at these
blessings.
"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength"
(Isa. 40:31). The word "renew" rendered literally is "change" - they shall
change their strength. It is a word used to denote a change of garments. They
shall lay aside their strength and put on, as a garment, strength from God.
This whole 40th chapter of Isaiah is a series of contrasts between the frailty
and feebleness of man and the strength and greatness of God. Yet man is a being
who fancies that he has some strength. And so indeed he has in the sphere of
the natural, but it is a strength that utterly breaks down in the sphere of the
Christian life. The problem is to rid ourselves of self-strength that God may
clothe us with His own strength; and this is the first blessing promised to
those who "wait upon the Lord."
How does God effect this? I do not
know, but I know that somehow when we are waiting upon Him, our strength, which
after all is perfect weakness, is laid aside, and divine hands clothe us with
the strength of God. We do change our strength.
WE now come logically
to that great second blessing promised to the waiters upon the Lord: "They
shall mount up with wings as eagles." What does that mean? Why as eagles? Why
not with wings as doves? I think it is because the eagle is the only bird that
goes so high that he is lost to sight in the upper heights. Think of some of
the peculiarities of the eagle. He is the most solitary of birds. Did you ever
see of hear of a flock of eagles? His aerie is on some beetling, inaccessible
crag. The eagle has to do with great things, mountains and heights and depths.
An eagle can also be very still. No creature holds such reserves of quietness;
there is no restlessness in him. There is the repose of perfect power. He can
be quiet when it is time to be quiet. But when the sun rises and his eye
catches the first ray, you may see him stretch his mighty wings, launch out
over the abyss, and begin that tremendous spiral flight up, up, up, higher and
higher, until he is lost to sight; and all day, on balanced wing, he is there
in the vast upper realm of light, above all storm, in the great tranquillity of
the upper spaces. That is mounting up with wings as eagles. To be up there, as
we might say, with God. No Christian ever comes into God's best things who does
not, upon the Godward side of his life, learn to walk alone with God.
Before God uses a man greatly, He isolates him. He gives him a separating
experience; and when it is over, those about him, who are no less loved than
before, are no longer depended upon. He realizes that he is separated unto God,
that the wings of his soul have learned to beat the upper air, and that God has
shown him unspeakable things.
If we mount up with wings as eagles we
shall often grieve the judicious, and must count upon some experience of
misunderstanding; but we can keep sweet about it. We may avoid this. We may
nest low enough to be understood by the carnal, turn sedately the
ecclesiastical crank, and be approved; but if we take the upper air, we must,
like the eagle, go alone. that is precisely our calling. Christ will never be
satisfied until He has each one of us separated unto Himself. Hear: "If ye then
be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above" (Col. 3:1).
How far above? "Where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God" (Col. 3:1).
Stretch the pinions of your soul, remember that you belong up there, and beat
the lower air and rise and rise until you are with the enthroned One.
Now another blessing, the third: "They shall run, and not be weary." That seems
like an anticlimax, as does the fourth blessing: "They shall walk, and not
faint."
What! Must we come down and run and walk here on this stupid,
prosaic earth after these eagle flights? Yes, Precisely. The eagle flight is
unto that. We go up there that we may serve down here, and we never can serve
down here according to God's thought of service, until we trace the spirals of
the upper air and have learned to be alone in the silent spaces with God. It is
only the man who comes down from interviews with God who can touch human lives
with the power of God. Yes, we must run down here, and walk down here, but only
in the degree in which we know the inspiration of the upper air can we either
run without weariness, or walk without fainting.
What is the "walk"?
It is the everyday of life. It is the getting breakfast, dressing the children,
getting them off to school; it is going down and opening the store; it is going
out and feeding the herds; it is going into the study and opening the Word of
God. It is whatever our appointed task may be. It is doing this all day, in
heat and cold, dull days and bright days -- the common life. It is this, the
everyday walk, that tests and tries. Far easier is it to gather one's energies
for a swift run sometimes than it is to walk. But we have to walk; we are made
to walk. We live a common life, a life of everyday duty, plain, Prosaic, and
unbeautiful.
But we may "walk, and not faint" under the war and petty
vexations and frictions of everyday life, only on condition that we have been
"waiting upon God." The man who does that will be a reservoir of sweetness,
quietness and power.
Adapted from In Many Pulpits with Dr. C. I.
Scofield