Chapters: 1. Why Don't Men Obey God?
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23 WAITING ON GOD
It was June 8, 1943, when we moved into this lovely dwelling
at 301 East North Street, which was to be our home for the next
sixteen months.
The Holy Ghost had called me to wait upon Him in the Word
and in prayer, and that is what I began to do. I would try to
read ten to twenty chapters a day in the Word. Some days I would
read more, some days a little less. I also tried to spend from
one to four hours a day on my knees waiting before God, although
some days it was less than an hour. This was not a rigid pattern
I set up out of a formal sense of duty. I was delighted to wait
before God, to talk with Him, to praise Him, and--most important
--to listen to Him. The longest time I ever spent on my knees in
prayer within a twelve-hour period was a little over eleven
hours.
I think I had one or two revivals that first year. Of
course, I could have sent out announcements to many churches that
I was available for evangelistic services. But the Holy Ghost
revealed to my heart: "You may go out in evangelism, but if you
go, it will be your doing. If you wait until I send you, it will
be Mine; and what I begin, cannot end."
Waiting on God is paramount and indispensable. It is as
urgent to true Christianity as breathing is to the body. Our
waiting on God must be continuous and unbroken, as the breathing
that maintains life. If we do not breathe, we die. If we do not
wait on God, we come to spiritual night and barrenness, to
spiritual poverty and death.
229 The deep need to wait on God lies first of all in the very
nature of man. His first sins were disobedience, pride, and
trustlessness. Man wanted his own way. He chose to do something
God had commanded him not to do, relying on his own judgments
rather than those of Almighty God. Man wanted to trust in
himself rather than in God, and he desired knowledge to make this
self-reliance possible.
Since disobedience took us away from God, the path back to
fellowship with Him through Jesus is by obedience: by doing what
God leads us to do--what He assigns and what He orders. The
difficulty, however, is in humbling ourselves to do His will.
The struggle comes within our nature, which is unwilling to
surrender, to be submissive, to comply to God's design and His
order.
You see, there is a crisis here. There is a matter of
vision. We must somehow get the vision that only what God leads
will last. Some fifteen to seventeen years ago I was
communing with God in the prayer room when the Holy Spirit
revealed to me, "What God begins never ends. There is no end to
any one thing that God begins." In direct contrast, all that we
originate, master-mind, or motivate has no life in it. Anything
and everything that we touch ends in death. We are of the earth,
and the earth has received the condemnation of death.
There is life only in Jesus. Life comes only from God.
Only as God works His will on earth through the Holy Spirit
can we have any spiritual life. This is what He
revealed to me in April, 1942, when He said, "By Me, the Holy
Ghost, they (all men) will be fed. Only by Me, the Holy Ghost,
can they be fed." But the Powers of the Air fight to prevent
this simple, inviolable, fact from reaching us. Unless we wait
on God sufficiently, we will not so much as be aware that we
simply cannot participate in the Kingdom of God until He leads us
and directs us.
Because of this simple and primary fact, the most
important activity in the earth is to learn what God wants in our
life--
230 what is His word from Heaven; what is His will for me? And the
choice of my heart must be to will God's will.
Because of our innate disobedient tendencies, we must wait
in order to be taught how to receive our instructions; for the
truth of the matter is that God has quite a bit to do with us
before we are ready to follow the instructions. There is much to
be done within us in our waiting before we are prepared to start
on the assignments of God's Kingdom.
God can work through only the individuals who wait upon Him.
He cannot operate through a person who arranges things by his own
ideas or for his own convenience.
In waiting upon God we first experience spiritual
observation. We observe the Person of God: we observe His Word;
we look to the Son of God; we look to the Holy Spirit. Then the
searchlight of His love starts in the inner man. We begin to
observe what we are, who we are, how small we are, and how
limited we truly are. In waiting, we learn spiritual
observation. We become dimly aware of the things which God wants
to do through us, if only He can remove from us the carnal traits
in our natures which hinder and hurt others.
There is, in waiting before God, a spiritual refining, a
spiritual crucifying. Sometimes we must wait before God quite a
while before we see a number of things within us that are in the
way, that are hindering Him and stop the flow of the Spirit
through the church. There are many veiled characteristics of the
self-life in individuals which will not allow the Holy Spirit to
flow through a body of believers. That body, therefore, is
barren. Very little divine power flows through a church when the
organs of that body are not willing to comply with the spiritual
law of the Word of God. But while each member of that body waits
in prayer upon God, the Holy Spirit searches him and then begins
the refining process where Self is crucified.
In our waiting before the Lord we see ourselves as we are.
Isaiah said, "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the
Lord...high and lifted up..." A great prophet of
231 God confessed: "When the King died...I saw." Now as we wait upon
the Lord, He begins to crucify the kingly elements of our lives.
That is the "I" business, the ego, the self-reliance: what we think
we are; what we think we can do. He begins to reveal to us our
uncleanness, our naughtiness, our jealousies, our wrong incentives,
our selfish motives, and our warped attitudes.
As we wait upon Him for a few months or a few years He
reveals more to us concerning some spirit of strife, resentment,
or malice in our lives. We will not be waiting long on our knees
before the Lord will reveal to us that we have analyzation that
must be eliminated from the inner life. It's a natural thing to
want to know "why?" But He cannot work through us if we want to
know answers to all the questions. He can work through us only
as we will submit ourselves to become the answer as
Christ lives in us a life of obedience, surrender, and trust.
At a place of prayer, God meets us; and in His presence we
become aware that it is expedient for us to be crucified. With
great agony of soul we acknowledge that all carnal traits must be
removed, obliterated, and cleansed out of our heart and mind by
the blood of Jesus. This isn't an easy time. It is severe. You
will think you are dying. You will be dying; yet you will be
coming to life. God will be slaying you; yet you are more alive,
because He is working through you.
We are not able to do this ourselves. We cannot arrange
this or accomplish this on our own. God can only perform this
through individuals who are willing to remain in His hand,
willing to wait in His purpose until He is able to cleanse from
them these weaknesses; until He is able to take from them all
things that mar, deter, hurt, crush, and cause the Holy Spirit to
be grieved with us.
As we become quiet, the Lord begins to break us to pieces.
It requires quietness to attain a clear vision. As we see God
clearly and view Jesus Christ in His beauty, we begin to see why
we should be broken; why we ought to be purged,
232 cleansed, and filled with the Holy Spirit. This experience of
brokenness is but a part of the beginning of divine surgery.
No minister or layman can serve victoriously in the church
until he is broken and subdued. Oh, he can be laboring and, like
the disciples returning to their earthly interests, toil all
night and catch nothing. He can work and work, but there will be
no divine joy or heavenly victory.
Most persons will not wait upon God. They proceed with
their own plans, arrange their own lives, and later say, "I don't
understand why we are having such a difficult, disappointing
time." Often if we are not willing to wait, God leads us to the
waiting by severe experiences. If we do not wait on God, we will
be stopped somehow. The gears of circumstances will grind us to
pieces. If we are not willing to wait on God and let Him have
His way, there will be something that will halt spiritual
progress. It is preferable to wait in the beginning, until all
is set in order, so that we can move in the right direction.
Otherwise, we miss God's objectives.
Once we begin in proper order, we are to go slowly, for in
the Kingdom of God, the true saint never moves rapidly--he goes
slowly. Often the individual who is long in getting started with
Jesus, wants to go full speed ahead. This is spiritual
immaturity. The mature saint goes very slowly and carefully. He
is quite cautious in his behavior and with his decisions. This
is discovered in a life of waiting on God.
When God revealed to me that He wanted me to wait upon Him,
I didn't understand all that He wanted, but I was glad to wait.
Day after day I would pray and wait. It was primarily my
listening in. Occasionally I would pray with vigor and energy
for half an hour to an hour, then wait an hour or half an hour.
I would listen in to see what He was teaching me, to learn His
revelation. He had many things to teach me.
I had a number of carnal tendencies within me, which He
first needed to remove before He could enable me to help
233 someone else. You see, if I were to try to assist some person by
means of my own insights and suppositions, I could easily
discourage or injure him. But when God leads me, all are
benefited. (If we could only perceive this, it would be
worth the entire book.) I am still learning.
Many people in the church will try to tell you what to do.
As a rule, a spiritual man never seeks to give counsel to anyone.
He never informs the pastor what his programs should be. It is
usually a carnal person who insists on giving instruction to the
minister. Anyone who thinks he knows all about spiritual things
hasn't waited enough as yet. If he waits awhile, he will learn
that he knows very little and that only God knows the necessary
information. This is among the first lessons we learn as we wait
on God.
Did you realize that the things we know--our seeking to
understand, our theories, our insights--have many times gotten us
into a great deal of trouble? The Word of God exhorts us to
"trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thy own
understanding." Needless to say, there is no premium on
ignorance. But many persons have been depending upon their own
understanding rather than trusting God (meaning--leaving the leading
and the planning to Him).
The spiritual person never dictates what followers of Christ
should do. Individuals call me from all over the United States
asking, "What does God want me to do? Which way shall we go?
Does God want me over here? Is this the work? Is this the right
choice?" Many are seeking counsel. I cannot answer according to
my own personal opinion or in response to my own ideas. I must
have the guidance of the Holy Ghost. I must pray to discover
whether Jesus would be pleased to reveal His guidance to my
heart.
Most counsel is of the flesh (and I can tell by the
operation of Jesus in my heart that this is true). Very little
counsel is of the Holy Spirit. God's Word says: "Blessed
is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor
standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the
scornful."
234 The counsel of the Holy Spirit comes to the person who
consistently obeys and waits upon God. The first few years he is
on his knees, this lowly heart will learn the seriousness of
giving counsel to anybody. He will learn how cautious he must
be, how he needs to be just what Jesus would have him to be, so
that God can work through him what He wills. I have prayed now
for twenty-five to thirty years that I could be, by God's grace,
close enough to Jesus that God can speak through me the very
words which the people need. To Jesus' glory, He has done this
on a few occasions.
I recall talking to a man in a filling station when
unexpectedly I said, "Claude, I have the leading that you should
retire today and go home." He was rather surprised and wondered
what it meant. I didn't know I was going to say it myself. It
just came out of me. In seven days he had his heart attack and
was forced to rest. God was wanting to use this limited servant
to spare this man needless suffering and loss, but he was not
able to recognize that the words I spoke were more than my own.
In waiting on the Lord we are brought to brokenness, if we
can remain steady and quiet long enough. Sometimes it takes a
long while to break us up. It comes by waiting upon God. To
wait on God is worth more than all the gold in the land, all the
pearls in the sea, and all the diamonds in the earth. This
is the secret of revival in the church, for if the
people of the church are willing to wait upon God, it won't be
long before they are confessing their criticisms. Tender hears
will be confiding to neighbors: "Oh, you didn't know it, but I
criticized you a year ago. It grieved God's heart terribly and I
am sorry." Repentant souls will tell pastors: "I talked about
you to my companion and I can see now I was out of divine order.
Please forgive me."
If you say one critical word about anyone, you have grieved
the Holy Spirit. If I were to criticize or find fault about any
person to my wife--in any way, at any
235 time--I would grieve the Holy Spirit. He could not use me in
God's Kingdom until I repented of that.
Someone may ask, "How do you keep from criticizing?" The
only way is to have the spirit of criticism removed and cleansed
out of us by the blood of Jesus. Another may say, "I just find
myself complaining about this person and murmuring about that
problem." It is because a fault-finding spirit is in your heart.
This must be taken out of the inner life, for it will damage the
church, causing it to be barren, dark, and unattractive.
Some people claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit, but
they find fault with others. The Holy Spirit does not live in
people who criticize and find fault with anyone. He is grieved
with them. The Holy Spirit lives in a gentle, broken, obedient
heart, which loves Jesus with all its strength. If people in a
congregation find fault with each other in secret, God cannot
bless them in worship or anywhere else. I know this is
not popular to say, but we must know the truth, because the truth
will set us free.
Whenever there is conflict in a Christian group it is
because of a carnal spirit. The Holy Spirit does not
lead along the lines of contention or argument. The apostle Paul
clearly indicates this when he admonished young Timothy:
"And the servant of the Lord must not be quarrelsome--
fighting and contending," the Amplified version puts it.
"Instead he must be kindly to every one and mild-tempered,
preserving the bond of peace; he must be a skillful and suitable
teacher, patient and forbearing and willing to suffer wrong.
He must correct his opponents with courtesy and gentleness..."
The Holy Spirit is always grieved when there is division, conflict,
or fault-finding in a so-called Christian fellowship.
God will soon reveal to all waiting souls that we must not
criticize or murmur about anything or anyone, for He said in the
second chapter of Philippians: "Do all things without
murmurings and disputings: that ye may be blameless and
236 harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a
crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the
world..."
One of the primary sins that has caused the church to be
barren (which indicates that the power of God is not in her
midst) is this spirit of criticism or finding fault. This
grieves God. Whenever you find yourself picking at people,
remember that this is carnal and you need to be cleansed from it
through the Holy Spirit and the blood of Jesus Christ. God
cannot live in a life that is critical, hateful, impatient,
jealous, angry, or spiteful. We learn this in depth only as we
wait upon the Lord.
God absolutely does not want us to criticize or find fault
with each other. If Satan can tempt two or three
persons in a congregation to murmur or complain about one
another, the demons are laughing in hell, because they have
that church right where they want it. I repeat: the spirit of
criticism must perish. It must be removed out of us in
order that we may see revival and be used of the Holy Spirit.
How can we rid ourselves of these evil tendencies? Well, we
cannot. It is not in us to do it. It is only by the Holy Ghost
who lives in us. We are lifted above the critical spirit by
obeying every leading of the Holy Spirit; by trusting the Lord
with all our heart; by reading the Word daily, praying
faithfully, and praising the Lord frequently. By His Love, we
surmount and resist criticism. When our heart is filled with
love and holiness, a critical spirit is a stranger. In the
humble, broken, and contrite heart, the spirit of criticism is
unwelcome and resisted.
In this School of Waiting we also learn adaptability; how to
adjust ourselves to the conditions we are in; how to follow
Christ with wisdom.
When I first found Jesus, I wanted everyone saved
immediately. I have since learned that often I must wait for a
long period of time before I am permitted to say anything about
salvation to certain individuals. There are people in
237 my home town to whom I haven't spoken about their souls for forty
years. I want to say something, but I cannot.
By the help and leading of the Holy Spirit I have been
privileged to see a man saved at a filling station within fifteen
minutes. In a motel I helped a precious person find Jesus in
twenty-five minutes. I have seen persons saved in my car in
various states. But in my home community I must keep quiet,
because in each case I am to adapt to the situation.
I am not free to talk about spiritual things to a number of
persons in my home community because they place me under certain
pressures which all true servants of God experience. Jesus said,
"A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and
among his own kin." For twenty to forty years I have prayed
for many in our locality, and we have seen a few genuinely converted.
However, I can tell that the great majority do not want me to talk
to them about their salvation. A number are disturbed when they
hear me praise the Lord at worship or about the town. On the other
hand, I am thankful for the few with whom I have had Holy Spirit
fellowship.
Some dear and earnest Christians will speak exactly what is
on their minds, simply because they feel that the Bible instructs
us to witness. But unless God is leading, the dear ones we are
attempting to reach do not appreciate the sharing or the precious
exhortation. Instead, they resent it and are driven farther away
from the victory which we long for them to experience. If this
dear Christian pilgrim could have prayed, trusted, and obeyed a
few days, a few months, or longer--the Holy Spirit would have
arranged the appropriate time for the witness or the sharing.
Conviction would have pierced that cold heart, and God would have
brought him into the Kingdom by His might and power.
I have learned that when we are in a church where there are
a number of lukewarm church people, unless the Holy Spirit really
puts the praise in our hearts to be said aloud--unless the power
really works it out of the inner man--it is
238 better to praise God inside. Otherwise we will lose our
influence with the dear ones who are far from the sacred will of
God. If we praise God audibly in the flesh, those who stand far
off from Jesus are offended and draw back further. Now if Jesus
praises God through us in the Spirit, though it may cause some
stir, it will only intensify conviction, for the Holy Spirit has
led it.
Something else happens as you wait upon God--your faith is
placed on exhibit. You begin to see your faith in operation.
You perceive how much you are in need of the Faith once delivered
to the saints. You find in waiting that your faith is tried,
tested, measured, balanced, and explored. In waiting on God you
discover the strength of Jesus' Spirit within you. You learn
your own personal weaknesses and your utter dependence upon Him.
In waiting upon God your faith is renewed, enlarged, and
increased; your usefulness is multiplied.
Some have the failing of talking too much, and others do not
talk when they should. It would be wonderful if we could
encourage those who get out of divine order and speak in the
flesh to hold silent; and to persuade the shy, backward souls to
speak out when God prompts them. The talkative person has many
times damaged his influence by speaking too frequently, whereas
the timid person can still be wonderfully used for Jesus.
However, Satan tries to attack them with such fears that they
will not open their mouths when God is urging them to obedience.
Many earnest Christians could be used of the Lord, but they
have hurt their influence by moving or speaking out of order.
They didn't wait long enough to find out how to react to the
situation; they went on in the strength of their own well-meant
ways and their influence has been marred. But God desires that
we wait until He can teach us when to speak and how to follow
Him. By learning at His feet, we are less liable to cause injury
to anyone, but can assist in carrying their burdens.
If we could only persuade people to be willing to wait on
239 God: to let God take out of us, through Jesus and the work of
the Holy Spirit, those things which cause us to be jumping ahead
of His leading. We go too rapidly. We want to bring spiritual
things to pass too quickly--far ahead of God's time.
The Lord revealed to me a few years ago while in the pulpit
of a precious congregation that we in the church are in the
garden where the seed of the Word has been sown, as the parable
of the sower describes it. The seed has been sown and tiny tender
plants (precious souls) are waiting to be brought to life by proper
sunshine, moisture, and loving care.
However, if we in the church are not trusting, if we have
not sufficiently waited on God to receive His instructions, if we
have not learned what Heaven wants in every situation--then we
are blind. We mean well; we want to do good; we desire to serve
Jesus. But because we are proceeding in the flesh and not by the
leadership of the Spirit, we are blind and cannot see where the
plants are growing. Instead of nurturing and assisting these
tender souls, we are actually trampling them down. As the seed
in the parable of the was trodden down, we in the church are many
times hurting the souls we deeply long to see born again. We bruise
the souls who could be brought to spiritual maturity.
In our earnest endeavors we are crushing people with wrong
motives, by our words spoken out of order, through harsh
preaching. In the trustless body of believers we tread under
foot all the things we are trying to accomplish. Unless we
are inwardly cleansed and crucified, we will be crushing the
souls which we want to be won to Jesus. They will be
hurt by a little carnal strife, some fault-finding, theological
argument, impatience, or petty jealousies.
I was a very impatient person before I was cleansed. God
had major surgery to perform on me. I did most all things fast:
drove fast, walked fast, talked fast. God had to slow me down.
In order to be in divine order I had to remain lowly at the feet
of Jesus daily to be constantly slain and purged.
240 On the other hand, my wife is very slow. Thirty-seven to
thirty-nine years ago as we prepared for church I would say,
"Honey, hurry up, we are going to be late." The more I talked
the more behind she was. My urging only confused her. After
Jesus sanctified me, however, many times I could carry her shoes
and hose to her, help bathe the children, and get them dressed.
Of course, she did about all the housework and caring for the
children, but occasionally I could assist her.
God puts a slow person with a fast one to teach the slow
person to speed up and the fast one to slow down. He puts the
talkative individual with a nontalkative one to teach the one who
doesn't talk to speak up a little, and the one who talks too much
to quit talking so much and listen more. Sometimes a husband
will be untidy: his trousers are left lying over there, the
shoes are over here, his belongings scattered everywhere. The
wife, on the other hand, likes everything in the house arranged
in an orderly fashion. God puts a tidy one with an untidy one to
teach them both lessons of longsuffering and patience.
Oh, how we need to wait on God and let Him make us ready for
the battle. He has much to teach us and much to develop in the
inner life. We will be always learning of our limitations and
inabilities. We will learn that we need His knowledge, His
strength, and His wisdom. Many precious people are seeking to be
filled with the Holy Spirit in order to have more spiritual
power. But true spiritual strength can only begin when we
recognize our inner poverty and come to the end of depending
upon ourselves.
In spite of this fundamental admission, pride will often
prevent a person from forsaking his own ways and acknowledging
his limitations. Hidden deep within us we often have so many
stubborn, prideful ways that are unwilling to submit to the ways
of God. We have lovely homes, good jobs, plenty of luxuries; but
within the interior heart the life is drab, dark, and empty.
There is no glory of Jesus, no radiance of divine joy.
241 It is sometimes because of a spirit of arrogance, a spirit
of self-reliance: that defensive voice which says, "I am as good
as anybody else." I felt that way before I met Jesus. But after
I began to wait upon Him, He helped me to see that I was the
least of all servants. I felt myself to be on the bottom. I
wasn't on the second rung of the ladder: I was absolutely on the
bottom.
Now if you are happy at the bottom, you are happy anyplace.
When you are glad for a little bit of nothing, then you are
thankful for anything. You may have nothing much of earthly
value, but you are so thrilled because you have Jesus in your
heart, and He is everything. When we begin to realize that we
are unworthy of the least thing that God does for us, when we
discover that we are unworthy of the tiniest crumbs of His love
and His revelations, then we are coming close to the bottom in
humility.
We are not able to reach this bottom place by simply
deciding to be lowly and seeking to be humble. It is the Holy
Spirit's assignment to strip us of the carnal dependencies and
superficialities which insulate us from the terrible knowledge of
our wretched spiritual bankruptcy. Our self-sufficiency and our
own good works have blinded us to the true poverty of our souls.
We are already the least of all things; we are already empty of
any redeeming value; we are at the very best "unprofitable
servants" --we simply aren't aware of it yet.
The Lord often lovingly begins to make us aware of this
spiritual bankruptcy by taking from us all the earthly props
which lend us the illusion of our own self-sufficiency. At the
very beginning He took from me the understanding of my Elder, my
father, my friends, and my relatives. He took away my human
sources of comfort in order that I would look to Him alone for
strength and guidance. He removed my earthly supports so that I
would begin to trust Him in actuality, not in word only.
242 You see, our great tendency is to lean on a friend, rely on
respected opinion, depend upon certain situations, and look to
established groups or accepted ideas. We want help from the
pastor, from parents, from teachers. But God desires us to come
first to Him. He wants us to seek for help, counsel, and succor
first from Him. He wishes to be all things to us. But we will
never find Him all-sufficient and all-providing until we discover
the abject poverty of our own resources.
When He begins to remove those things which are artificially
holding us up, we will begin to learn how weak we actually are.
We won't know how weak we are for a long time. It may require
many years to learn how dependent we are upon God. But because
God knows that we will never truly be fulfilled until we are
trusting only in Him, He will teach us about our inadequacies and
our limitations. He will demonstrate how prone we are to
speculate, to waver, and to wander.
When God brings us, then, by His mercy to the end of our
meager resources, there is nothing left for us to do but fall
helplessly into the arms of Jesus. This, finally, is trust.
Trust is resting only on the promises of God. Trust is
walking not by our own insights, our own deductions, or our own
ideas-- but wholly by His Word and by His revelation.
This way of trust is so simple, but it has been missed by
most people since time began. It's so simple we have overlooked
it. We preach about trust. We sing about it and teach it. But
how long will it take before we actually begin to apply it in the
interior life?
While we are waiting upon God, He is working within us
miracles for His glory which we cannot observe or describe. You
may think that you are not making progress. You may feel that
you have waited too long and time is wasting, but often you are
moving fastest with God while you are waiting in secret. You are
approaching the goal which is not gained by speed.
243 A hymn, deeply loved by my wife and me, has well expressed
this truth to our hearts over the years.
Not so in haste my heart!
Have faith in God and wait;
Although He linger long,
He never comes too late.
He never cometh late;
He knoweth what is best;
Vex not thyself in vain;
Until He cometh, rest.
Until he cometh rest,
Nor grudge the hours that roll;
The feet that wait for God
Are soonest at the goal.
Are soonest at the goal
That is not gained by speed;
Then hold thee still, my heart,
For I shall wait His lead.
--Bradford Torrey, 1843-1912
While you are waiting, God is rooting you downward in His
love and His likeness. He is planting your feet upon the solid
Rock, Christ Jesus. The roots of your experience, your insights,
and your abilities are sinking deep into the crevices of His
purpose; they are reaching deep into the cool streams of His
hidden designs. The soul is casting off the garb of earth's
religious values and is being robed in the righteousness of
Christ alone.
As you go down in humility, God lifts you in revelation.
While your roots are sinking down in lowliness, the spiritual
branches are mounting upward. God brings us upward to give us a
glimpse of His marvelous Kingdom. We may see far-away horizons
of His many, many purposes in the earth. These are but a few of
the sweet delicacies of His love which He shares with those who
wait upon Him.
I recall one day when I had waited in prayer for a few
hours. All at once the lovely fragrance of blooming roses
permeated the air. I knew that there were no flowers in the
244 room; still it was as if I were in the midst of a rose garden. I
had often sung of a beautiful garden of prayer, but this was the
first time God ever permitted me to experience one. Another
time, after waiting a long while, it was as if I were in a room
full of gardenias. This is beyond earthly knowledge indeed. One
may pray for years and years and never have this experience. I
wasn't expecting it, but Jesus sent it. It required a few years
of prayer to get there.
I experienced a similar gift of God's love while with Rev.
Robert Morgan and his wife in Marion many years ago. We were
privileged to have fellowship day after day, sharing the things
of the Kingdom of God. One night about midnight, while in prayer
together, we were suddenly in a garden of lilies. "Do you smell
lilies?" they asked.
I answered, "Yes, I do!" Oh, how happy we became!
What people will receive by waiting on God! You will enjoy
more than flowers, as wonderful as they are; you will get more
than perfume: you will possess the loveliness of Jesus within
you. His compassion will come into you, along with great
tenderness and gentleness. His love will begin to flow through
you to all people everywhere.
In waiting, God teaches many things about Himself, about the
Kingdom, about His work, about His love; but He teaches you
mostly about yourself. He acquaints you with yourself. Many
people are seeking to know themselves through various methods of
analysis, but this knowledge is of the earth. God will make
plain your true person as you are able to yield that newly
discovered individual to Him continually.
While we wait upon God, He somehow takes the blindness from
our eyes. We see Christ in a new perspective, and in His purity
we see ourselves reflected as we actually are. As we view His
marvelous majesty and holiness we will know for a certainty that
"in us dwelleth no good thing." With loud voice we will
witness to the fact that we are indeed "no-thing". We are as dust.
And when we really know we are nothing, then He becomes everything;
He becomes all.
245 In nothingness there is no jealousy, no anxiety, no
selfishness. You have no plans, no schemes, no programs;
everything is in the hands of Jesus. You are merely trusting.
Until you are brought to nothingness, you will not truly trust
God.
There is a unique quality in the trusting heart: it is
filled with much praise. In hard places, when things are going
wrong, when the food burns, the tractor stalls, the water heater
breaks--the trusting heart can still rejoice. And as we meet in
secret daily with our beloved Lord, we will be taught the lesson
of adoring God and praising Him much more.
God has shown me that praise is the very breath of trust;
and where there is no praise, trust is choked to death. Now
praise is dependent upon the joy in the life of a true son of
God, and joy is dependent upon his obedience to the Holy Spirit.
Where there is obedience, joy flows like a river.
Don't be discouraged when you don't know how to pray.
Simply wait on the Lord and He will teach you little by little.
Through the years we have endeavored to have family scripture and
prayer regularly, and sometimes after my wife and the girls were
asleep I would be on my knees trying to pray. I would wait and
let the Holy Spirit reveal to me what He wanted me to pray. I
have wept for joy sometimes when I was so happy it was beyond
description. Upon occasions I have wept as I have waited in
prayer so that some may have thought me sad, but I wasn't: I was
thrilled. I was so delighted I hardly knew what to do. I would
rather like to cry sometimes, but seldom am I permitted unless
the Spirit comes upon me and I can see the wonder of God's love
for me.
One night between midnight and two in the morning I was
crying out to God when, in the Spirit, I could see Him on the
Throne and Jesus Christ by His side. I could see how God's heart
was grieved with us mortals because we had come so far from His
will. It seemed as if I looked into God's broken heart. The
glory was so great within me and around me that I wept. My heart
was broken because He
246 was so grieved with us mortals. Yet, in the midst of my weeping,
I experienced an ecstasy of joy because the revelation was so
marvelous.
Jesus was a man of sorrows, but He was not sad or morose.
He sorrowed because He could see the potentials of the men about
Him. He could see that mankind had been working around in the
rubbish when He could have brought them to the garden of His
purpose. His heart is still broken because we are missing so
much. We are living on the marginal when He would have us at
the center of His will. We are gnawing on the bones of the
"good" when He would offer us the rare delicacies of His "best."
He would continually give us lovingly of His best, if only we could
daily in our hearts live the words of this prayer hymn:
My times are in Thy hand:
My God, I wish them there;
My life, my friends, my soul, I leave
Entirely to Thy care.
My times are in Thy hand,
Whatever they may be;
Pleasing or painful, dark or bright,
As best may seem to Thee.
My times are in Thy hand;
Why should I doubt or fear?
My Father's hand will never cause
His child a needless tear.
My times are in Thy hand;
I'll always trust in Thee;
And, after death, at Thy right hand
I shall forever be.
--William F. Lloyd 1791-1853
In this chapter and throughout the book I am able to share
only a tiny, tiny bit of what is involved in walking with God.
But He will teach each follower of Jesus as he denies Self to
wait upon Him, trust Him, and obey Him. What God has given me in
the hours, days, weeks, months,
247 and years of waiting upon Him in prayer and in the Word, I would
not exchange for anything in this world.
And yet, I did not begin to wait on Him in order to get
something in return. I went daily to meet with Him because that
is what He called me to do. I waited upon God because He invited
me to commune with Him, to love Him, to worship Him. Waiting did
not come naturally to me--I had to press daily to meet with God.
He called me to serve Him for Himself alone. I know of no higher
privilege for man.
It is still a marvel to my heart that the Lord could teach
me as a young man of twenty-six the urgency of waiting only
upon God. Remember--I may be only in the vestibule of
waiting and trust. Dear one in Jesus, be encouraged to press
onward to the goal.
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