I Will Wait

Isaiah 30 

“Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore He will rise up to show you compassion.  For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him!” 30:18

I’m so excited that this verse came at the end of my scripture journal.  I have been contemplating what I will study next. I’ve thought about the women in the Bible, heaven, Satan.  But the one thing that keeps rising in my heart is JOY. I don’t fully understand it but I know I want it. So, I want to find out what it is so I can have it!

In verses 9-11 of this chapter, the Israelites are called “rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction.”  Not incapable, but unwilling. They only want to be told “pleasant things,” they want to hear what they want to hear and forget about what God wants for them.  It sounds to me like they were in the pursuit of happiness. A plague that inflicts our world today. We want to be accepted for who we want to be. We don’t want to be “judged”. We want to be left to our own devices and let everyone just be.  

But what happens when we allow ourselves to be our own lord? Verse 13 tells us.  It says, “this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant.” IN.AN.INSTANT. Our whole world can collapse around us.  The things that make us happy can be torn away. What then? What holds us together? What keeps us from ending it all and being done with life and lost forever? If we are in the pursuit of happiness, the answer is nothing.

But what if we are in the pursuit of joy?  What if we long to be what we were created to be?  “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore He will rise up to show you compassion.  For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him!”

I’ll be a waiter!  I will wait for His mercies.  I will wait for His guidance. I will wait to see the goodness He has in store for me. I will wait for JOY to come in the morning. Blessed be the name of the LORD!