The Timing of God, Waiting - David Mitts

But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isa 40:31)



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As we come into a new year and a new season in our lives, we naturally present our heart’s desires to the Lord. Much of what we want to see is truly God’s will for our lives and as His children, we seek His face and His blessing. Often God responds with a resounding “yes” and we think it should just fall into place. Yet there is also the issue of timing. If we look at Biblical examples, we see this played out again and again. There is a set time for the manifestation of the promise of God. Take, for example the promise to Abraham and Sarah that they would have a son. After many unfruitful years, in the time described as beyond hope, God appears to Abraham and declares:

But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year." (Gen 17:21).

The term “set time” is the term “mo-ed” which is the same as the term for the Feasts of the Lord. Like the Feasts, the Lord has an appointed time for the fulfilment of His will in our lives.

The term Mo-ed as we remember, means from eternity. This is really a cool concept. God who is eternal, without the limitations of time, who knows the end of a thing from its inception, comes into our time limited framework and meets with us. In the case of Abraham and Sarah, the set time, the mo-ed would be a creative miracle that would alter the destiny of all of humanity. Without Isaac, there is no Jacob and without Jacob, there is no Joseph, and without Joseph, there is no Judah, through whom we have Yeshua, the lion of the tribe of Judah. This demonstrates the power of a set time.

The term mo-ed is also used for the Tent of Meeting.

““In the tent of meeting, outside the veil which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall keep it in order from evening to morning before the LORD; it shall be a permanent statute throughout their generations for the sons of Israel.” (Exo 27:21)

Aaron and the priesthood came to worship the Lord at the “ohelmo-ed”. This was the designated place where God would accept the worship of the priests on behalf of the people of God. The priests were known as the “Cohanim”, the root of which is the cohen which is derived from the root “ken” which means yes. They were the agents of God’s yes.

“For as many as the promises of God are, in Him they are yes; therefore, through Him also is our Amen to the glory of God through us.” (2Co 1:20)

The place where the yes, the agreement of the Lord with His word in our lives, was the place, the tent of the mo-ed. The tent is the place of the intersection of eternity with time. What happens when eternity intersects with time? Miracles. What exactly are miracles?

I believe they are the operation of the kingdom of God, His realm inside the fallen realm of sin and death. He supersedes the laws of sin and death with the laws of the life in Messiah Yeshua.

“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” (Rom 8:2)

Through His grace, His chen and His mercy, His chesed, God has established portals or gateways into His realm for His children to draw upon the power from that realm.

“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,” (Eph 3:20)

The question becomes, how to access that power of eternity into our finite, death ridden world? I believe there are many keys but one of the keys I want to look at today is the key of waiting. It is interesting to me that waiting is part of the process. Waiting is “in time”.

God who has no time in Himself, who is the same yesterday, today and forever and thus beyond the cycles of the seasons or of day and night still purposefully limits Himself to time.

When the disciples asked Yeshua about the set time for Jerusalem and the establishment of the earthly Kingdom, He said:

“But He said to them, “It is not for you to know periods of time or appointed times which the Father has set by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and Samaria, and as far as the remotest part of the earth.”” (Act 1:7-8)

The term “appointed times” is the mo-ed. The revelation of the appointed times by Yeshua to His disciples was preceded with an instruction to wait.

Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, "Which," He said, "you heard of from Me;(Act 1:4).

Waiting is a key component to the fulfilment of God’s promises.

What is it to wait and how do we activate ourselves into waiting?

Let’s turn to Luke 24 to gather some understanding. Yeshua has been crucified and has arisen and is appearing to the disciples. In our terminology He has paid the price for sin and has forgiven the disciples and is now about to launch them into their purpose in life, their mission.

While they were telling these things, He Himself stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be to you." But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing a spirit. And He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? "See My Hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. While they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, He said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish; and He took it and ate it before them. Now He said to them, "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled."(Luk 24:36-44)

Yeshua appears in bodily form to the disciples. They reason that He must be a spirit because no one has ever appeared before who died as anything but a departed spirit. We see an example of this with the prophet Samuel who appeared to Saul as a spirit and also on the mount of transfiguration with Moses and Elijah. Yeshua however appears in physical form with a body which He anchors their experience of Him with clear instructions to touch Him. He cements this by eating a piece of fish. Why is this important? I believe it’s because He wants them to relate to the physical reality of their mission. They are not forming a new religion but are becoming agents of a transformation of physical reality.

Death is a physical experience. Resurrection is also a physical experience. The Law of sin and death is experienced physically. The Law of the Spirit of Life is likewise a physical experience.

Continuing:

Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. "You are witnesses of these things. "And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high." (Luk 24:45-49)

Can you feel the prophetic reality that He is revealing. He opened their minds to the scriptures. He opens our minds to the scriptures. In that context there is a promise of God that is be released at a set time. Scripturally for these disciples, the set time is at the Feast, a set time of Shavuot. Why does God use the Feast? It is a picture for us that He binds Himself who is eternal into time at His set times, His Mo-ed.

Our part is to wait with expectation for His Promise at a set time. What is hard for us to accept sometimes, is that God’s timing is definite and often related to an agenda that surpasses ours. God planned the baptism of the Holy Spirit with tongues of fire at Shavuot before time. The confusion of languages at Babel was reversed by the unity of tongues at Shavuot. Unity requires waiting.

Let’s look at the Ancient Hebrew for waiting. The Hebrew root is “qavah”. This is the root for Tikvah, hope. The first letter is the letter “quf”, which is the word picture for the sun or a revolution of time. There are things that can only happen when the sun is shining. Take for example plants. They open when the days are long enough to signal the season for growth. This is related to the length of time of the sun.

Another important time connected variable is emotional healing. I recently listened to a patient of mine who is in the anniversary season of the passing of her husband. She is processing grief and finding a purpose in this season. The season is defined by the amount of sun. We are also very aware of seasonal affective disorder where people suffer depression in days of diminished sunshine.

All of this is related to waiting. The second letter of qavah is the vav. The vav is the symbol for a tent peg. It gives the meaning of securing something to the ground, like an anchor. Our soul is anchored through hope.

This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, (Heb 6:19)

This picture is of our hope anchoring our soul in turbulent times by entering into His Presence.

Waiting on the Lord is a process of recognizing the place of the sun in our lives, the season, the appointed time and being anchored through hope in His Presence.

The final letter for qavah is the “hey” which means revelation. This is the true key. We need revelation to be able to wait.

A revelation involves a change in perspective, how we see things. A revelation gives us light to see, a hope in the darkness. Think of a totally dark room and you switch on a flashlight and you can now make out the contents of the room. They have been revealed to you and you can now walk through the room and find your way.

It was because of a revelation that I went up; and I submitted to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but I did so in private to those who were of reputation, for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain.(Gal 2:2)

A revelation directs our actions and our expectations. If we look at the primary examples of waiting by Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel all of whom waited to be pregnant with respect to the revelation by God of their part in His destiny plan, we get an insight into the importance of revelation.

So our composite picture of waiting is the quf, the sun and daylight, the season of manifestation, vav, the anchoring of hope and the hey, the power of revelation. This tells us that there is a season and a timing which anchors us to the revealed promise of God.

Activation: Press in for a prophetic word, a promise that you can practice waiting for. Waiting is a state of empowerment. As we learn to wait for the promise, there is available to us, power to run.

But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isa 40:31).

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