When God Says Wait

Delays can feel agonizing, but God has a bird’s-eye view and His timing is perfect. In this practical message, Dr. Stanley talks about six things you need in order to receive God’s best in every situation. For more messages from Charles Stanley, including this week’s broadcast, go to www.intouch.org/watch

As we look to the future, we are excited and prepared to continue sharing Dr. Stanley’s messages with those who haven’t heard them before or who would love to gain a deeper understanding of God’s word by listening to his messages again.

When I think about all the lessons I’ve learned throughout all the years, the most important principle I’ve ever learned is this one.
Obey God. Leave all the consequences to Him.
But there’s a second principle that I think is still very important and that is wait upon God for his timing, wait upon God for his timing.
His timing is very, very important.
And so often we think, well, if I know what God wants me to do, that’s all that matters.
No, I also need to know when he wants me to do it or how He wants me to do it.
So when I think about these passages, and I think about all the opportunities we have and whatever God calls us to do, you can never go wrong, waiting for God’s timing.
But it requires something, it requires that we be patient because God doesn’t always tell us immediately when he wants us to do a certain thing sometime.
It’s this time that goes by and when we step ahead of Him, we get ourselves in trouble.
So timing is very important with God because what he wants to accomplish is usually more than what we have in mind.
So when I think about this, I came to this verse in the 27th psalm which reads, wait for the Lord be strong and let your heart take courage.
Yes. Wait for the Lord. That is, don’t hurry but wait for him.
Waiting for him is a difficult thing, especially when I want something now or when I think it’s necessary to have it now and God doesn’t think the same way.
Wait for the Lord be strong. Let your heart take courage. Yes. Wait for the Lord.
So I think about two times in my life where this principle was very important.
And, um, when I think about them, I think about how absolutely easy, simple and true.
It is yet often times it’s not so simple and so easy.
And, um, the first one I remember, uh, when I had wrecked my automobile, lady, hit me from behind and knocked me about 30 ft down the street.
And I remember being in the car and uh, God spoke to my heart, don’t buy a car.
I thought that’s strange. I’m not even thinking about buying a car, but God knew I would be thinking about it.
And so I waited and waited and waited and, um, I thought, ok, God, I’m gonna do what you say and I’m just gonna trust and, um, so, um, I finally thought, well, I’ve got to do something.
So I went to this dealer and I sat in this particular car I chose and I waited and, uh I prayed and talked to God about it and then I got up and left.
Then I went back and I sat in it and, uh, I fumbled around like you do and checking everything out to see how it all works.
And it’s like God said to me, do you want this or do you want my best?
I said, God, I want your best. He said, well, don’t buy this car.
So when the salesman walked up and said, what do you think?
I said, you probably won’t quite understand what I’m thinking, but I’m not gonna buy this car.
And so it was probably a few months later, I’m going with a friend of mine, uh, to a meeting and he says, when are you gonna buy yourself a car?
I said, well, I’ve just been waiting for God to show me.
He said, well, what kind would you buy if you were gonna buy one? I didn’t even think.
I said, well, if I just had my choice, I’d buy one like this.
And, uh, three days later I got a check in the mail to buy that car.
Now, it was a whole lot better than the one I was looking at and a whole lot more expensive.
And then of course, I, I don’t always do the right thing some time.
And when I first came to Atlanta, I lived with a friend of mine for three months because I couldn’t find a house.
And so finally, after looking and looking and looking said, ok, we’ll take this one.
But I said now, one thing I want to be sure I put in the contract, there’s no water in the basement is the water in the basement.
Not no deal. Well, when I went home, I thought, well, Lord, I didn’t do what you said.
Dude, I stepped ahead of you that night.
It came this horrible torrential rainstorm, put a foot of water in the basement and saved me the very same day that it rained.
I found the house that we moved into brand new house. God’s timing isn’t good.
It’s perfect because he knows all the details. He knows past present future.
He knows what we need, what we want. What’s the wisest thing to do?
You can never go wrong waiting upon God’s timing.
So when you think about decisions that you make and decisions that you’re faced with, ask yourself the question, uh am I in a hurry?
Um Am I waiting on God’s timing?
And I talk to people often times who are making big decisions, who tell me why they’ve got to do something right now?
And I’m always willing to say, do you ha has God told you this is the right time?
Well, I don’t always hear from God.
I said, well, if you haven’t heard from him, you better listen because God has a right time and a wrong time.
The scripture says in this 27th psalm, wait for the Lord.
Listen to this, be strong and let your heart take courage. Yes. Wait for the Lord. That 14th verse.
He repeats it. Wait for the Lord be strong and let your heart take courage.
Why do you say that? Because oftentimes it takes courage to wait.
But listen, when the spirit of God saved you, the spirit of God inhabited your life.
He was there for a number of reasons.
One of which was to give instruction to give direction for your life because God knows none of us are sufficient within ourselves to always make wise decisions.
And so we have the Holy Spirit to caution us to quicken our spirit to do the right thing, always willing and ready to show us the right thing to do.
So when He says, be strong, let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord.
Sometimes it takes courage and sometimes we have to be strong to say no, not right now.
So what I wanna talk about is this simple subject when God says, wait, when God says, wait in your life, what do you do?
Do you pray and say well, Lord, thank you for that.
But I think I’ve got this all figured out now or no.
When God says, wait, that’s exactly what he means, whatever the issue is, you wait till God gives you direction.
Somebody says Well, now, I don’t know that I always hear God watch this character. You listen and say, amen.
That’s why you need to learn to listen to God.
When you don’t have anything that’s pressing, you don’t start like this.
You learn to listen to Him when you don’t have a big issue in life.
When there’s no pressure, you make it a habit to listen to him with little things in life, things that are not so crucial at that particular point, learning to listen to God and weighing on his timing, I believe is the second most important principle in the world.
We’re not talking about whether we believe in God or not.
We’re talking about Christians, we’re talking about waiting upon God until we have a clear direction as to what to do because we have the promise of God’s word.
He will give us direction. It’s not a matter of trying to find it.
Is there any place in the world of God where we have direction? Sure. There are many places.
He promises to give us direction. He promises to answer our prayer.
And so when I look at this verse, wait for the Lord, be strong and let your heart take courage.
Yes. Wait for the Lord. In that verse is a warning.
Well, listen, be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait, why does he say be strong?
Because He knows that at some points and sometimes in the life, it’s very difficult to have to wait, especially when everybody around you is telling you, well, why not?
Now? This is a good time. It’s a good time of the year. This is a great time.
Not whether you have the money or not, not, whether you have found the will of God or not.
Listen, if we’re going to practice the best principles, one of those principles is simply this, that is wait upon the Lord be strong.
He says, wait upon the Lord. So ask yourself the question.
Are you one of those person who’s gotta have everything?
Now, if you are, you’re gonna get in trouble when God says we’re to wait upon him, watch this.
Here’s what he’s doing. He’s saying I because I love you with all my omniscience, knowing all about past present future, what’s best for you?
Now, what will be best for you tomorrow?
You wait until I give you direction, then you’ll have absolute clear, perfect direction as what to do.
It’ll prove better for you. Now, it’ll prove better for you for the future.
But wait till I give you clear direction.
Somebody says, well, but how am I gonna be sure I’m listening to God, watch this carefully.
You learn to listen to him when you don’t have any pressure. I’ve said it before.
Learn to listen to him when you don’t have any pressure, learn to listen to him.
When, when it’s something simple, Lord, would you have me to do less.
And so, so let’s think about it for just a moment.
What are, what are the requirements for waiting upon God? Because there are requirements.
Well, the first one is this and that is I have to trust him.
If I’m gonna wait upon God, I’ve got to trust him because my waiting is saying I’m trusting you God, that your timing is better than mine.
You know what? I do not know your time is always right.
And so I’m gonna trust you and I’m gonna wait till you give me permission to go there or do this or have that about the.
It isn’t that God’s trying to deprive us of anything. He only wants what is best for us.
So it takes faith and what I mean by that is simply this, am I willing to trust God for his timing before I make a decision?
You say, well, how do you will, you know God’s time and He will show you what does he say?
Asking? It should be given you seeking, you should find knocking. It should be open to you.
That is God is willing to show you the truth.
If you’re willing to ask Him now, if you are living in sin, disobedience to God, you’re probably not gonna hear Him because you can’t hear Him because you don’t think they wanna hear him.
But I’m talking about people who really truly want to do the right thing you want.
What’s best for you, for your family decisions that you have to make.
It takes faith to wait upon God because trusting Him doesn’t mean I’m gonna get what I want when I want it.
Trusting Him says, I believe that when the timing is right, God will provide what I’m asking Him for.
So would you say that you have the faith to wait upon God when you come to a decision in your life?
A major decision. It takes faith to wait because we think, well, if I don’t get it now, what I won’t get it.
If I don’t do it now, it won’t be done. Let me ask you a question.
Is there anything too hard for God? No.
Can’t God control any and every circumstance, if God tells you to wait, do you think that something’s gonna slip out from under God’s care?
No. If, if we’ll stop and think the power of God, the wisdom of God, the love of God, the knowledge of God, we’re not gonna miss anything we ought to have by waiting upon God.
If God doesn’t provide something that you’ve asked for and you are trusting Him, it’s because you either don’t need it because it’s not good for you or it’s not the right timing.
It all boils down to this. Do I trust him or do I not?
It takes faith to wait for God to sign me and I just gave you an example the first time I didn’t wait, bought the wrong house.
But thank God I got he, he, he delivered me from bed and I assure you, I’ve never repeated that mistake again.
Secondly, he gave me enough wisdom to wait and I got an automobile, I never would have purchased.
His timing is always perfect. So, ask yourself the question. Do I have the faith to wait?
A second thing that is required of us? And that is simply patience.
In the 37th Psalm, listen to this three times in the 37th psalm.
He says, beginning in verse one, do not fret, second times.
He says, rest in the Lord, wait patient for him. Do not fret.
Third time, do not fret three times in that Psalm.
He says, don’t fr that is, don’t allow yourself to be to get anxious about something when you can ask God about it.
Now, if I should ask you, do you believe God loves you? You would say yes.
What would you include in love when you include good advice, good guidance, provision, help strength energy.
What when you, when you include those things in God’s guidance and love for you? Yes, you would.
If you believe that God is who He says He is, you can believe that God will show you the right time to do anything and everything, the right time to make a purchase, the right time to go the right time to do this, the right time to have this particular job.
God’s timing is always perfect. Do I believe that he has our best interest at heart?
If I believe that I’m gonna wait. But watch this.
Somebody says I don’t have any time to waste. You never waste time waiting on.
God never, you’ll always find out that his timing is always the right time. So it takes faith.
But secondly, it takes patience. For example, David was a teenager. King.
David was a teenager probably when um Samuel, the prophet anointed him to be king of Israel.
He was somewhere probably 17, 18, 19 years of age.
Well, when do you think he became king?
You would have thought this is it, this is it over 12 years later, God fulfilled the promise.
God’s timing is perfect.
The question is what is am I willing to trust him for his timing or insist on my timing?
Do I really and truly believe that my patience is a gift from God that when God says mm mm mm not yet that God is looking out for me, not doing something against me.
It takes faith, it takes patience, it takes courage.
And I love one of my favorite verses in the Bible is in this first chapter, Joshua, listen to God said to him.
No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life.
Just as I’ve been with Moses, I’ll be with you. I will not fail you or forsake you wonderful promise.
Then he says in verse 91 of my favorite verses, he says, have I not commanded you be strong and courageous, do not tremble or be dismayed for the Lord, your God is with you wherever you go.
And so if I’m gonna trust him, I’ve got to trust his time.
It takes courage to say no to, to offers.
For example, I remember on one occasion, somebody wanted to give me a very, very valuable piece of property and build me a house at no cost in a wonderful place.
I thought it was a great idea. I did.
And so uh we, we, we said about uh he, he just said, here’s the architect and y’all just design it, just design it the way you want it.
And here’s where we’re gonna put it, which was on a beautiful island.
And so naturally, I thought, well, Lord, you’re just blessing me.
And then when I got to praying, that’s not what I got.
Now, I got real encouragement from the person who wanted to do it and encouragement by the architect naturally.
And so uh the Lord and I had to talk about it and I wanted to know, well, why not?
Yeah, why, why not? And the lord reminded me, that’s not the right question.
The right question is if it’s my will and this is not a me, it’s not my will, it looks right.
It’s free, but it’s not my will. And So you must say no.
Well, then I had to deal with that.
How do I tell my friend that I cannot accept something so valuable and beautiful and desirous?
And when I finally did naturally, he did not understand.
I said, well, the only thing I can tell you is this, when God tells me not to do something, I’ve made enough mistakes in life to know He means exactly what he says.
And I cannot require of God to tell me why. Sometimes He’ll tell you why.
Sometimes he won’t. It was probably about six months later that I realized why now did I covered it all during that time?
No, I didn’t. I knew very clearly that God was saying to me.
No, this is not my will. It looks like my will, but it’s not.
This is why listening to God is so very important.
And it’s why it takes faith, patience and courage to wait upon Him till we know His will.
Many things look like the will of God because oftentimes it looks like God just being good to you.
In other words, I couldn’t think of any reason not to accept something. Uh that was so desirous.
But finally, the Lord showed me, I didn’t have to understand why all I had to understand is whether I was going to be obedient or not.
And I think about so many people get in trouble because they tried to reason with God.
No, nowhere do I find in the Bible?
It says I am to obey God on the basis of the following reasons.
No, I’m to obey him because he’s God.
That’s the only, that’s the only reason I need when God says no.
And you have to be careful when God says no, that you don’t say, OK. Now, why not God?
We all think that. But before you try to watch this, before you try to talk God into something, ask yourself the question.
Suppose I’ll do this anyway. You can’t fathom all the difficulties and the hardships and the trials and the problems and the costs and everything else that will come as a result of a deliberate disobedience to Almighty God.
Now think about all the people who get excited about each other and jump up and get married if you ask him, did you pray about it?
Well, I talked to God about it. That’s not the issue. The issue is, did you ask God?
Was this His will? Well, I mean, everything looks so good.
You can’t go by looks, you can’t go by anything but the voice of God.
This is why you have to learn to listen to Him and make a choice.
Watch this, make a choice in life before the pressure.
In other words, is it, is it the pattern of your life to listen to God before you make decisions?
There are some decisions that are irrevocable.
Once you make it, you’ve made it some decisions. You can’t change.
You have to live with them.
I think about all the people who get married and never, and never ask God and no, within 30 days they made a mistake.
I think some of the, some of the most desperate weeping I’ve ever witnessed a people who made that mistake and they’ve come back to me and say I didn’t listen to you.
I should have, but I didn’t, I sort of knew you were telling me the truth, but I just figured somehow it would all work out.
Watch this. You can’t work out disobedience to God. It doesn’t work.
God’s watch this. God’s timing is perfect. It’s perfect.
It may appear to be late, but it’s perfect timing because God knows all of the avenues that affect us.
It takes faith, it takes patience, it takes courage, it takes determination to obey God takes determination sometimes because of all of the things that other people think and what they say and maybe their influence in your life and all the rest.
It takes determination to wait. Why are you gonna wait this?
This is the chance of a lifetime. Why are you gonna wait, watch this carefully?
You say, why do you keep saying, watch this carefully because I want you to watch it carefully because it’s so very important things may look exactly right.
But something deep down inside of you who is the Holy Spirit is cautioning you. Mm Mm.
Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. And, uh watch this carefully if you don’t obey the healing of the Holy Spirit.
Yeah. He doesn’t get louder and louder and louder. He comes on loud to begin with.
But because of your disobedience, you hear him less and less and less. Finally, you don’t hear a thing.
You have to determine, you have to determine, to wait for God, especially when you’ve got lots of pressure on you.
You have to determine the way you got it. Everybody has an opinion about something. So think about it.
It takes faith, patience, courage, determination. And then it takes strength.
No, not moving until God says move, not making a choice until God says, make a choice.
It takes strength. And so we go to the scripture and who is the source of our strength?
Almighty God, Lord, if this is not your will give me the strength to say no.
And Lord give me the desire of my heart for you and for obedience so strong.
I don’t want to do anything that brings about disobedience in my life. It takes strength to say no.
And especially if somebody is saying, oh, come on, come on, come on, come on. It’s gonna be ok.
And let me tell you what it’s gonna be ok.
Nobody can change the mind of God by telling you it’s gonna be ok.
And this is why you have to be careful.
It’s easier to listen to loud voices rather than the quiet whisper of the Holy Spirit.
He’s not gonna shout unless it’s so very important that God is not gonna put up with it and the rules with his sovereign care and comes down so strong.
No. And God knows how to do that. So let’s go over them again.
It takes faith, patience, courage, determination, strength. And then the last one it takes is endurance.
You just have to hang in there and listen to people tell you why you should listen to people tell you why you should not endure.
That is you endure their suggestions, their influence, their testimony or whatever it might be.
But you have to decide if you’re gonna be obedient to God or not.
Waiting upon the Lord is a lesson we learned and having heard this sermon, I pray to Almighty God.
You do not walk out of here and forget what you’ve heard.
If you do, you’re going to get in trouble, the world’s full of trouble.
The world’s full of offers people full of suggestions of how you ought to live your life and what you ought to do and what you should not do.
There’s only one ultimate supreme voice that you listen to and that’s God.
If I’m gonna wait upon him and listen to Him, it takes faith, patience, courage, determination, strength and endurance.
That means I’m willing to hang in there.
God with you no matter what until you show me what to do, obey God, leave all the consequences to Him.
But a way to fund the Lord until you know that you have heard what he requires of you.
God’s not gonna tell you to do anything sinful, disobedient out of the will of God.
This is why we talk about walking in the will of God because it’s the safe place.
The best place, the wisest place, the happiest place is the most successful place you can be is walking in the will of God.
Will you miss some things in life?
Only those things that are not good for you obey God.
You’ll have what God knows is good for you.
So you have to decide you’re gonna listen to Him or listen to somebody else listening to God and walking on his schedule, making decisions based on His guidance and direction in your life is the only way to live.
So just think about your life for a moment.
Is it your habit before you make decisions to ask God?
Or have you come to the conclusion?
Saying, well, listen, after 50 or 60 years, uh I, I’ll always make the right decision.
I wouldn’t say that, I wouldn’t say, oh, forget the praying after all that.
Let me tell you something. We’re living in a world of sin, disobedience and rebellion toward God.
So we have a life for the world.
The way of life for believers is to obey God, to listen to Him.
And to walk in his way and watch him work. Amen.
Now, if you never trusted Jesus Christ as your savior, all this is foreign to you.
I understand that. So the most important decision you need to make in your life is to surrender your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, confessing and repenting of your sins, surrendering your life to him, then you can hear Him and you’re going to realize that God has something to you.
You never dreamed of. He has the best for you.
If you will surrender your life to him and begin to trust him, follow him, obey Him, your life is gonna change.
It’s gonna change for the better.
And I trust that whatever you’re doing wherever you are right at this moment, you will stop when this service is over and you will ask God to cleanse your heart, forgive your sin, surrender your life to Him and begin the most awesome journey.
You could possibly imagine walking with the living God who has promised to provide your needs, give you direction and give you an excitement about life.
You will never never experience until you’ve surrendered your life to Him.
And that’s my prayer for you, father.
We love you and praise you that you love us enough to stop us dead in our tracks when you know you want to do what’s right?
You know who’s listening to this message right now, who is in the process of making a decision.
Maybe it’s a decision that has long range consequences.
Father, I pray that you’ll speak to them, clearly, impress their heart, move their mind, will and emotion to do the right thing and to realize they can trust you God, that you are trustworthy.
I pray your holy Spirit will speak to every single person who listens to this message.
The Lord impress their heart to trust you and watch you work in the most awesome fashion, always for their good.
And I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.