The biblical concept of waiting on the Lord (e.g., Psalms 27:14; 62:5; 130:5; Isaiah 40:31) can look different in particular situations. Often, however, waiting on the Lord means waiting with patience for God to accomplish his perfect (Romans 12:2) will for our lives. A beautiful example of the Bible’s call to wait for God to unfold his perfect will appears in Exodus 23. God in that passage promises that he will most surely give the Promised Land into the hands of the children of Israel, destroying before their eyes the Canaanites who now possess the land (Exodus 23:20-28). However, the Lord is not going to act as quickly in this work as many Israelites might hope. Why is he not going to destroy the Canaanites in a single day or month or year? The Lord gives the answer in Exodus 23:29: “I will not drive them [i.e., the Canaanites] out before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you.”
Do you see the wisdom of the Lord in this instance, and do you see why he called his people to wait on him? If God acted too quickly in destroying the Canaanites, the problem would be that the Israelites lacked the capacity to occupy the land fully in such a short period of time. Their failure to occupy the whole land would give the wild beast time to multiply and spread out, to the point that the beasts would become a threat to the Israelites. So the Lord will take his time in dispossessing the Canaanites from the land, and as his people wait on him, they will see the unfolding of his wise plan.
Perhaps the Lord is calling you right now to wait on the unfolding of his perfect will in your life. Maybe you are single and sense he does want you to be married, but there is no mate on the horizon, and you are in the position of waiting on the Lord. Perhaps you are beset with difficulties all around you, and while you feel certain the Lord intends to remove at least some of them, he has not yet moved his hand to do so, at least so far as you can tell. In these times of waiting on the Lord, he calls us, by his grace, to trust that his will for us really is good, loving, and perfect. And from Exodus 23 we can learn that as God (to our estimation) delays the fulfillment of his will for us, he is doing so for reasons that are for our good, even if we cannot see those reasons right now. “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 27:14).
In my experience, "waiting on the Lord" at times is far more difficult than others. The world is on a different time schedule than it once was. We are conditioned to a NOW response. When I feel I need an answer or response from God right away it usually doesn't come. I must sit down, clear my mind, pray and search the scriptures. God is faithful and always responds when I approach him in that manner.
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