Let’s be honest. Many folks have a strong faith in God and are seeking his will in everything they do, but they are still waiting on God to answer their prayers. They could be praying for a new job, a relationship, an illness, a problem at work, or a personal struggle. They have prayed repeatedly and have sought God’s will and still there is no answer, no sign, no movement. Maybe you know someone like that?
Perhaps that someone is you. If you are honest, you are growing really impatient with God. You don’t get it. You have done everything you are supposed to — brought your need to God, prayed faithfully, examined your heart, and the bottom line is you have a need, a problem, an issue, a desire, and there is still no answer from God. You are discouraged and getting ready to give up on your prayers and maybe even give up on your faith.
Don’t give up. Don’t quit on your prayers. Don’t quit seeking God. The message I have will give you encouragement and inspiration. This message will help you move be-yond your discouragement by seeing that there is wisdom in waiting. In fact, this message will motivate you to stop watching the clock and start getting yourself prepared for God’s answer! God will answer your prayer, count on that!
I know some of you find this hard to believe. Mr. Right or Mrs. Right has not shown up. You are still stuck in the same tired situation. That problem at work doesn’t seem to ever go away. That personal struggle in your life just doesn’t stop. You can’t see your life changing for the better. You think your life is going to be more of the same forever and ever. You think you will have to live with failure and disappointment.
The good news is that Christmas is all about preparing ourselves for God to enter our lives in a powerful way. We set aside this season every year not just to decorate the trees, give and receive gifts, sing the carols and drink hot chocolate, but to prepare ourselves for God’s perfect answer to our problems, our struggles, our pain, our disappointments, and our frustration with waiting.
Look at Simeon. He had been waiting for years for the birth of Christ. He prayed for the moment he could hold Christ in his arms and praise God for providing a Savior for the world. God had promised it. He told Simeon to keep waiting patiently and Christ would be born. Simeon was faithful. He never lost faith in God. He waited with trust. The day finally came. Joseph and Mary brought Jesus into the temple and Simeon took him in his arms and gave thanks to God for keeping his promise. Christ was born! The light had come and the darkness would never overcome it.
When Joseph brought his child into the temple I am sure he resonated with Simeon’s relief and gratitude to God. He, like Simeon, understood what it felt like to seek God for an answer and have to wait for it. But after he experienced what God promised he was never the same again.
The irony is that Joseph is kind of the stepchild in the Christmas story. He always takes a backseat to Mary, the an-gels, and the wise men. When I was a child I played Joseph in our church’s Christmas program. I was all excited. I got my perfect bathrobe ready. I was ready to repeat my lines with perfection. I went to my first rehearsal and was disappointed to find that Joseph only had one line! That was it! One line! My line was a question to the innkeeper, “Do you have a room available?” The rest of the time I was just sup-posed to stand there next to the crummy animals and look happy! Poor Joseph always gets the short end of the stick.
But Joseph’s story is a powerful one that can teach us the wisdom and power of waiting on God. If we take a closer look at what he did and the role he played in the Christmas story, we will find a message that can make a huge difference to our faith.
Most of us know the story of Christmas and most of us know the role Joseph played in the story but in order to see the power in it let me tell you what happened. Joseph and Mary met. Sparks flew. Joseph proposed to Mary and she accepted. They were engaged! Engagement back then meant a lot more than a sparkling rock and a promise. Both families went to their lawyers and signed an agreement. You could get out of the engagement but it took a lot of red tape.
Mary got sick one morning and Joseph noticed that some-thing wasn’t right. Mary ’fessed up. She told Joseph she was pregnant. That would have been bad enough because they both came from very religious families, but they had bigger problems. Joseph was not the father because they had not been together before marriage! Joseph asked, “Who is the father?” This is when the soap opera fades out for a commercial!
The story continued as Mary told Joseph that she had not been with any other man. He said, “Well Mary how did it happen? Did a stork come?” Mary dropped the bomb on Joseph and told him that the child in her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Now, honestly, if you had been Joseph, would you have believed her? “Really, Mary? So I am supposed to believe this? Sure. You need to get your head examined. Have you lost your mind?” This is better than a soap opera! What happens next is really interesting. Matthew 1:19 (NIV) reads:
Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
According to the law, it was Joseph’s right to have Mary stoned to death! She had shamed him and shamed the family. But he was a good religious man so he decided to do the most humane thing, just divorce her quietly, sign the papers, and go back to match.com to find another wife. But look at what happened next in Matthew 1:20-21 (NIV):
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
Joseph woke up and said, “I must have had too much wine last night. This can’t be true! Did that really happen?” You know how dreams are. You never know. But something inside Joseph decided to trust God, to believe that the dream was true. Look at verse 24 (NIV):
When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.
It’s a wonderful story. Joseph decided to take Mary as his wife! What I want to focus on is the time between Joseph making this decision and Jesus being born — the time Joseph had to wait. We don’t hear anything about this but I believe those nine months Joseph had to wait were the most pivotal nine months of his life. Can you imagine how many times he doubted his decision and thought of bolting? “I’m basing all of this on a dream! What if when this child is born he looks like the milkman? Look at the way my friends and family look at me in public. They don’t believe me. I can tell. I wouldn’t believe me either! What a crazy idea. Am I really doing this?” Can you imagine how many times Joseph doubted God and thought of making a decision he thought was right for him, like leaving Mary?
I know many of you are in that boat. You have been waiting and waiting. You trusted God in the beginning but your patience is wearing thin. The trust you had is leaking. You are afraid. You are angry. You are confused. You think you are all alone. You think God has abandoned you and your prayers. You are sick and tired of waiting and you are ready to make a quick decision that you think is best.
Hold on. Let me remind you what happened to Joseph. After waiting nine months and worrying, doubting, and probably thinking about leaving Mary, his son Jesus was born. The star in the east lit up the sky. The angels sang like heaven. The Magi came. The dream was true! His son was the Christ! Imagine Joseph’s satisfaction. Imagine how good he felt for waiting, for trusting God, for being patient! Imagine Joseph being at a dinner party and people are introducing themselves and what they do. They are bragging. Joseph is just sitting there very quiet. He is waiting his turn and politely listening. Finally, it is his turn, “My name is Joseph. I’m a carpenter. I’m married to Mary. Oh, and I’m also the father of the Savior of the world!”
I tell you this because I know there are many of you who are in the waiting period that Joseph was in before the dream became a reality. You are in that period between trusting God and getting your prayers answered. You are in that period between believing and receiving and some of you are about to give up hope. Some of you already have. You are tired of waiting on God. You think all this time of waiting has been a waste of time. You have lost your patience and you are ready to do what is convenient and what seems right to you.
I want you to pause right now. Push the pause button and think of Joseph. Just think what he would have missed if he had decided to leave Mary. Just think how that would have altered his life and the destiny God had for him. He would have missed rearing and nurturing the Savior of the world! He would have missed being one of the most important figures in the history of the world. But he didn’t miss it because he was patient.
I don’t want you to miss God’s wonderful plan for you! Don’t quit on your faith. Don’t take the easy road. Don’t rush into something you will regret. God is working his purpose out for you. He is doing things in your present right now that will affect your future. This is why your patience and trust of God is critical! What we often think is waiting is part of God’s larger plan. Don’t spoil God’s best for you. Remember this: Patience is resisting the immediate to receive God’s best.
We often hear “the devil is in the details.” No, God is in the details! That is why your patience with God and your trust in him is critical. You don’t know the things he is working out in the midst of your waiting to bring an answer to you that may be even better than you imagined. This time of waiting needs to be a time of listening and preparing for God’s best for you — a relationship, a new job, a new calling, a different path, a new desire, a new birth like Joseph received, a totally unexpected situation that is beyond your imagination! God’s ways are higher than our ways! Patience is resisting the immediate to receive God’s best.
Vic Pentz shared a story that is one of the most powerful examples of how God is in the details. Pentz had a parishioner in his church who was a manager at Microsoft. He prayed and prayed that somehow his life could make a difference to someone. He was growing in his faith but he was disillusioned at work. He was well paid but he felt he wasn’t making any difference. He was getting restless and thought of quitting his job. He spoke to a mentor at work who he trusted about his dilemma. His mentor suggested that he hold off on quitting his job and told him, “Why don’t you get to know the people who work for you? Instead of emailing and texting people who sit just ten feet away from you, get up and go speak with them, you know, like they matter!”
A few weeks later one of his employees walked into his office and gave him a brand new Xbox gaming system. He knew what he paid the guy and it wasn’t much so he asked, “How did you get the money to buy this?” He said, “I sold my gun.” He said, “What?” He said, “Yeah you see six months ago my mom died and I got really depressed. I thought of killing myself. So I bought a gun and held that gun every night and contemplated doing it. I knew no one would miss me. The only way you would know is if payroll notified you. But then you did something you had never done before. You came out of your office and patted me on the back and told me that my emails made you laugh and that you really appreciate the good work I do because it makes you sleep better at night. So I went home and sold my gun and I bought you this. For the last few months you have been complaining how much you want Xbox Live, but that your financial advisor, your wife, won’t let you have it. So I bought this for you. So for my life, here, this is yours.”
The manager at Microsoft had prayed and prayed to make a difference. He thought his time of waiting for an opportunity was just a waste of time. It wasn’t. God was in the details — in the conversations — in the pats on the back — in the little laughs. He thought of quitting his job. He didn’t know God was using him to save a life. Patience is resisting the immediate to receive God’s best.
Imagine your life lived in complete trust in God, knowing his ways are better than your ways. Imagine the confidence you will have in difficult times knowing God’s best will eventually turn up. Imagine the courage you will have living every day knowing God has your back. Just be patient. His best for your life is coming. Amen.