What are you waiting for?

There is nothing worse than having to wait.  It drives me mad…

When I’m expecting a parcel to be delivered, I just can’t settle.  I’m up and down from my desk to the front window in some strange attempt to speed up the delivery van by looking out for it.  Half expecting it to be on the road outside the moment I look out the window.  Of course, just because I’m desperate for the thing I’ve ordered to arrive, the ‘all day’ delivery always comes at the end of the day, just to spite me.

I also can’t stand waiting in a queue, especially when the kids are there.  Kids have no ability whatsoever to wait in a queue without tormenting each other, fighting, bumping into the person queueing in front of us, or just being plain annoying. Kids are a nightmare when it comes to waiting in a queue.

I love the story in 1 Kings 18 where there had been no rain for three years because the Israelites had turned away from God and were worshipping false idols.  The effects of the three-year drought were devastating. 

In the third year, God speaks to Elijah and tells him to go and present himself to Ahab and that He would send rain.

So, Elijah invites Ahab and the false prophets of Baal and Asherah onto Mount Carmel, and through this crazy act of each of the prophets offering a sacrifice to his own God, Elijah proves that his God is the one and only true God.

Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Your name shall be Israel.” With the stones, he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed. He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.”
“Do it again,” he said, and they did it again.
“Do it a third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time.  The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.
At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.  Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”
Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.
1 Kings 18:31-38

I love the fact that Elijah saturated the offering with water, the most precious of commodity in a time of drought, to prove beyond doubt that God was real.

So, as was customary in the Old Testament, the result for the false prophets was bleak.  They were all brought down into the valley and slaughtered.  Brutal!

Elijah sent Ahab off, saying, “Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain”, and then returned to the top of the mountain with his servant to pray.  

He sends off his servant to look for signs of the rain that God had promised but there was no sign whatsoever.  But Elijah knew that God had promised rain.  He stood firm on that promise and continued to pray while he waited for the rain to come.   He sent his servant to look for signs of the rain seven times in all and, on the seventh time, the servant came back saying,

“A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea.”

The rain that followed was absolutely torrential, and the three-year drought was over.

Over the years, I have learned that God doesn’t change his mind.  He is a faithful God who has an incredible plan for each and every one of us.  A promise is a promise, but there is often a process that we have to go through, and if we hear His voice and are obedient to the process, then the rain will come.

ARE YOU WAITING FOR SOMETHING THAT GOD HAS PROMISED YOU?

All you need to do is pray, hear His voice, be obedient and the rain will come.  And when it comes, it’s not going to be a short shower, it's going to be torrential.

Keep praying, keep waiting, for the sound of heavy rain will come.

written by Richard Evans