Psalm 27:14 Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.
Waiting is one of the hardest things for people to do. People are more impatient than ever and they do not like standing in lines. Only a couple generations ago, people waited in lines and did not grumble very much. Those same people today expect instant service and they want what they want and they want it RIGHT NOW!
But it does not work that way with God. We see here in Psalm 27:14 that David twice the exhorts the reader to … wait. People do not want to wait. With the technologies today, we do not have to wait — we order things online and it is in the mail tomorrow. We go to the store and registers and cashiers run faster than they used to. We go for instant oil changes. We eat fast food. We watch movies on demand. We have hundreds of channels on the TV so we can find what we want to watch right now and if there is nothing on then we DVR it.We pay for things with instant money: credit cards.
We need to wait. Wait upon the LORD. The LORD will provide what we need. Note that in the verse, He provides for our inner or spiritual need (he shall strengthen thine heart), not our physical need. When we wait for the LORD, He will take care of the spiritual first, then the physical.Paul wrote:
1 Timothy 4:8 For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.
That is not to say that physical exercise is wrong, but we need to exercise the spiritual side first. Our problems arise when we focus on the flesh first. Before credit cards, we prayed for something when we could not afford it. We waited upon the LORD as we saved our money. We prayed and waited and what does that accomplish? Spiritual exercise. Building up our faith muscles, if you will. Look at verse 13:
Psalm 27:13 I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
David wrote that he had fainted, in other words, David had relied on his own strength and it was not until he believed and trusted God that he had real strength. David relied on the spiritual, not the physical and that comes with waiting on the LORD. God has His own timetable and we should NOT get ahead of Him NOR should we lag behind. When God shows us something He wants us to do, then we are to go now because later is not what God wanted.
James 4:1-3 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? (2) Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. (3) Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
We ask for something in order to fulfill our lusts (physical desires), rather than filling our spiritual needs. When we do that, we are asking amiss. The Israelites during the Exodus, would get thirsty and would begin to complain and murmur rather than pray to God for water to slake their thirst. They asked amiss.Maybe God wanted them to get thirsty so that they would rely on HIM rather than themselves. When we ask correctly, God will bountifully provide for us.
Believers today need to wait upon the LORD. Flex some spiritual muscle rather than physical muscle.