Waiting

I hate waiting. Whether I’m sitting at a traffic light, in a doctor’s office or waiting for a pot of water to boil I don’t like the grass growing under my feet. I’ve heard other people say that patience is a virtue but for me I want to squeeze 70 minutes out of an hour.  The truth is, I do tend to get ahead of God’s leading from time to time and God has to reel me back in. Why, I remember a time back in the 1990’s when I put on a small outreach to raise funds for a local missionary named Bob Daniels. Bob would collect funds, food and clothing then fly them down to an orphanage nestled deep in the Nicaraguan jungle.

When I met Bob for the first time, I was immediately taken by his bravado and swagger. The way he put his total trust in the Lord was infectious. So, in my zeal to help him, I organized the “Music Mission Outreach” and began to mobilize the troops. The process was hard, filled with obstacles and roadblocks.

 There use to be a small coffee shop called “Poets”, where Bob and I met for coffee and fellowship. The owner, after hearing about our plan, offered his store to host the event. Dawn and Neil Richardson, from the Willows Baptist Church, offered to print up flyers and take pictures. Soon others were getting involved by making crafts to sell, squeezing lemons for lemonade and even local Christian artists were offering to play for the crowd. A high school theater troupe worked on some skits to perform for the crowd. Bob Taylor donated some T shirts and a local sign company donated some really nice banners for the event.

In the book of Matthew 25:31-46 the prophecy depicts the story of Jesus coming back to judge the world. He begins to separate the non-believers from the believers; the sheep and the goats and in the process the righteous ask Him “When did we clothe You? When did we feed You? and when did we come to visit You? To which Jesus says to them “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these brethren, you did it to Me.”

So in my zeal to help Him, I failed to ask from the very beginning if this was something that God wanted me to do or was I doing it for my own reward? There is another verse in the book of Isaiah 40:31 that states “But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings as eagles, They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint”. As the event ended and we drove home to count the money the answer came loud and clear. The total amount collected that day was exactly $ 647.37. But I had expected there to be much more!

So why didn’t the Lord open up the floodgates of heaven and pour out blessings on us? I mean, after all, it was to help out helpless orphans and that was definitely in God’s will? The event got people involved and sent relief to children who really needed it. But why was there so little money in the offering? The bottom line, after all the money was counted and the dust had settled, was that I failed to wait upon the Lord. As I reflected back on the busy weeks of preparation that led to the outreach, I heard a still, quiet voice say “Dean, I don’t need your money”.

Ok, so now it’s time to total up all the expenses that went out. As I input the last figure into the calculator, I was stunned to read $ 647.36 on the calculator’s display screen.  Several feelings and questions rushed through my mind all at the same time. “If I reimburse myself then we didn’t raise a single nickel for the kids in Nicaragua. How could God allow this to happen and not bless our efforts? 

Years later as I look back on this event, it’s easy to see what God was doing. First, I did not wait on the Lord as the verse from Isaiah states. In my zeal to serve the Lord I had used all my own resources, connections and favors to bring this event to fruition. The voice I heard as I had counted the last coins was clear “I don’t need your money, I want your life” So now I had a choice to make, would I recoup my expenses and send nothing down to the orphans or chalk up a loss and send it all with Bob? Well, you will have to wait until next week to find out the answer.