Waiting for God

I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts. I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. Habakkuk 2:1

There are so many ways in which God’s actions or inactions make little sense to us.  We ask him for help, and he is silent. We trust in him to provide, and he withholds.  But is God inconsistent, or is he simply running according to another time schedule, another set of priorities?

Habakkuk questions God’s plan to use the pagan nation of Babylon to discipline wayward Israel. He then settles in to wait for God’s answer. Like a guard who waits through his watch with eye peeled for a sign of movement, Habakkuk waited for God.

So must we. We must pray with a willingness to wait and wait with a willingness to pray. Waiting and praying go together. Like two shoes of a pair or two halves of a whole, they work as a team.

Prayer: Dear Lord, sometimes things seem so hard, and we don’t understand why they must be that way. We pray, and we do not hear your answer. Help us to be patient, to wait for you to share your plan. Help us to be listening when you are speaking all around us. Amen

Laurie Schlitt (reprinted from 2008. Title added by editor.)