On July 7, 2017, I wrote this devotion on waiting. It is a strong word in the COVID-19 season. Read Deuteronomy 26:1-11, and consider these truths with me today…
Waiting. Does this word give you a bad feeling in your gut? Have you ever gone through a season of waiting on the Lord? Perhaps you were waiting on healing. Or maybe your wait was for some worldly circumstance that was causing you suffering (joblessness is a big one, and there are others). Was your wait for the salvation of a family member (child, parent, and so on)? There are yet other waits, too, right? Are you waiting now?
It gets more complicated. When times of waiting are shared with others, certain Bible verses start getting slung around indiscriminately. And typically, when these verses are shared without empathy to our situation (and merely quoted at us), our own sinful frustrations bubble to the surface. Nothing has changed. This waiting is still unbearable. Moreover, in instances like this, one might think, other Christians don’t struggle with this at all. What are we to do with this muddled situation?
“And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, ‘I declare today to the LORD your God that I have come into the land that the LORD swore to our fathers to give us’” (Deut. 26:3). Upon entrance into the land, the Israelites were to take and bring their first crop harvested into the presence of the priest (thus, the presence of God through his representors). They were to begin by acknowledging God’s promise fulfilled (26:3). From there, the Israelites were to recall centuries of history: “A wandering Aramean [Jacob!] was my father” (Deut. 26:5), “the Egyptians treated us harshly” (Deut. 26:6), God saw and delivered (Deut. 26:7-9). They had waited for hundreds of years for God’s promise of land to come. Centuries! Waiting.
Here’s the point. In times of waiting, realize that God may not answer your prayers or remove your afflictions even in your lifetime. The Israelites waited for centuries. One generation dies, another dies, and another dies, and the promise remains, but no earthly fulfillment shines forth yet. Here’s the important part. What the Israelites were to recite to the priests (Deut. 26:3, 5-10) was like a bearhug of the blessings that would see them through their waiting.
God blessed their father Jacob (that’s the wandering Aramean) with a new name, Israel. That’s one generation. God made this wandering Aramean many in number in Egypt. That’s another generation. God heard the cry of his people in Egypt when they were enslaved. There’s another generation. God brought them to the promised land. And there’s another one. Expectant waiting on the Lord waits not on the fulfillment of a promise but relies wholly on God in the now for sustenance and provision. Waiting is a reality. God’s sustenance and provision in the waiting is a reality, too. Hold onto both truths. Actively look and reflect on God’s provision for you now.
As we hold both these truths in tandem, Deut. 26:10-11 flow sweetly into our hearts. V. 10’s worship makes sense. V. 11’s call to “rejoice in all the good” is natural. They were worshipping God for all his works for his people. They were rejoicing in all the good done. As the Israelites entered a special moment in their history (entry into the promised land!), they were remembering God for everything he had done for them. They remembered the provision provided for centuries, and as this culminated in the great fulfillment of land, it was a heaping of praise upon praise and thanksgiving upon thanksgiving!
This is the Christian life. Day by day, month by month, and year by year, we wait. It could be something small or big, something gut-wrenching or slightly frustrating, or something eternal or momentary. We are waiting on Jesus with a “Come Lord!” on our tongues. But God blesses and preserves and provides now as we wait. God is there as you wait. “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:3-4). Be encouraged now, and wait expectantly. Blessings,
Jeremiah