Tarry

ONE WAY God gets our attention is by making us wait. We wait for an event, abide in his presence, and wait for an encounter.

So when we abide in Him, we wait on Him.

MARY and MARTHA waited for Jesus’ presence when Lazarus was sick.

And Mary said to him, “If you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died.”

However, Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life.” (John 11:17-44)

BEFORE Jesus went to the cross, he took his disciples to Gethsemane and told them to wait.

Then, he took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee a little further and told them to tarry with him. (Matthew 26:36-46)

Jesus prayed to share his heart with God and waited to hear him speak.

AFTER the resurrection, Jesus told his disciples to remain in Jerusalem until they are clothed (fully equipped) with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49)

They knew they needed his ability to do his work, so they waited for his Spirit.

To live in dominion, you must learn to wait.

WAITING on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, carry the unanswered question within oneself, and lift one's heart to God whenever it intrudes into one’s thoughts—Elisabeth Elliot.

Hannah waited on God, bearing the uncertainty of having a child and lifted her heart to God in prayer until she had a son. (1 Samuel 1:9-28)

YOU cannot wait on God without persisting in prayer because prayer is the place of power.

When the apostles were threatened, they prayed.

Praying is waiting

They told God to observe their threats [take them into account] and grant that His bond-servants may declare His message [of salvation] with great confidence and extend His hand to heal.

Signs and wonders (attesting miracles) take place through the name [and the authority and power] of His holy Servant and Son, Jesus.

When they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken [a sign of God’s presence], and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness and courage. (Acts 4:28-35)

Any threat is an indication that you need to pray.

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Waiting is praying

AT ONE POINT, Daniel asked his friends to pray that God would be kind to them and help them understand the king’s dream (this secret), so they would not be killed with the other wise men of Babylon.

During the night, God explained the secret to Daniel in a vision. (Daniel 2:18-20)

Daniel sought an encounter and had one, but you do not have to be threatened to pray.

ACTS 13:2 says, “As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.”

They were not threatened before they prayed.

TO KNOW the mind of God, you'll need to wait on him.

The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)

One way to discern is to pray.

WITHOUT the mind of God, you're left with the mind of men—and the mind of men is costly.

When David wept with his men, he was left with the mind of men. But when he sought God, he received the mind of God. (1 Samuel 30:1-8)

How you wait will determine how far you go.

HABAKKUK understood these and prayed, saying, “I will stand at my guard post and station myself on the tower, and I will keep watch to see what He will say to me and what answer I will give [as His spokesman] when I am reproved.

Your prayer begins with a location, a vantage position, because you're communing with God and an expectation.

You wait on God because you want him to speak and depend on him to do something.

God is delighted when we need Him.

THEN God said, Write the vision and engrave it plainly on [clay] tablets so that the one who reads it will run.

The vision of God makes more sense when you write it as actionable goals.

FOR the vision is yet for the appointed [future] time. It hurries toward the goal [of fulfillment]; it will not fail.

Even though it delays, wait [patiently] for it because it will certainly come; it will not delay. (Habakkuk 2:1-3)

God’s promise is His to keep.

Final Thought

GREAT EAGLES fly alone, great lions hunt alone, great souls walk alone—alone with God.

Such loneliness is hard to endure and impossible to enjoy unless God accompanies them.

Prophets are lone men; they walk alone, pray alone, and God makes them alone — Leonard Ravenhill.