Wait for It

Thanks to my church's New Testament reading plan, I've just finished reading Paul’s letters to the Thessalonian church. These letters pick up on a biblical theme as old as Genesis: waiting for salvation from wrath. The apostle Paul characterized the faith of the Thessalonian church this way:

“. . . you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come”  1 Thess. 1:9b-10.

They turned from idols to wait for Christ. Is this how you think of your calling? Is this how you view your life, as life of waiting for Jesus to come and deliver us from the coming wrath of God? I’ve got to admit, I wouldn’t probably have phrased it that way. But that might have something to do with the passive way which we usually use the word “wait.” Wait is what you do in a waiting room. But in Scripture, waiting is not passive. It’s being dressed and ready to go, sitting on the edge of your seat.  

As it happens, in that week's sermon, we heard about Habakkuk, prophet to a doomed people. The nation of Judah had given up on God and His promises and turned to idols and political power to get what they wanted from life. Without God’s law, they quickly became as wicked and brutal as powers they idolized. Habakkuk was distraught:

“O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?  . . . Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise . . . the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth . . . or justice goes out perverted” (see Hab. 1:1-4).

Habakkuk cried out to God until he was exhausted, but when God finally answered, it was not the answer he had hoped for. God did not bring revival, nor did He relent. In fact, God was busy arranging for the wicked Chaldean empire to carry out His judgment on apostate Judah. But, God assured Habakkuk, He would in turn bring judgment on the Chaldeans for their brutal treatment of Judah. His wrath would come, but God’s faithful would have to wait:

“For still the vision awaits its appointed time;

     it hastens to the end—it will not lie. 

If it seems slow, wait for it;

     it will surely come; it will not delay” (Hab. 2:3)

This Word of God is what Habakkuk would cling to as he watched his nation crumble and its people carted off into exile, and it was this promise of justice he clung to as he made his famous statement of faith:

I hear, and my body trembles;

     my lips quiver at the sound;

 rottenness enters into my bones;

     my legs tremble beneath me.

 Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble

     to come upon people who invade us.

  Though the fig tree should not blossom,

     nor fruit be on the vines . . .

 yet I will rejoice in the Lord;

     I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” (Hab. 3:16-17a, 18)

From Old Testament to New, the whole Bible is the story of people waiting. Yes, it’s also the story of people abandoning hope (most, in fact, do), but it’s mainly the story of the remnant who persevere in faith and obedience to God. And the story is told for our sake, those of us who are still waiting, so that we won’t give up.

Because we have the word of God, we, like Habakkuk, can wait with joy, even while the world around us crumbles. And we who have turned from our idols, like the Thessalonian church, need to heed Paul’s warning to actively wait. As he puts it, we need to be dressed and ready for action, “having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:8-9).

(This article was originally published here.)