The waiting itself is beneficial to us: it tries faith, exercises patience, trains submission, and endears the blessing when it comes. – Charles Spurgeon

Punxsutawney Phil, the legendary groundhog that lives in a tree stump in rural Pennsylvania, may be in real trouble. This week he issued the most anticipated weather forecast of the season: 6 more weeks of winter. If Phil hadn’t seen his shadow, it would have foretold the early arrival of spring.

If he’s accurate…or even just suggesting more winter, for a lot of people, Phil is “dead meat.” I googled it and it doesn’t appear that there is a ground hog hunting season, but there are lots of recipes for ground hog dishes. Though I have no idea where you can purchase groundhog meat, Phil may end up on someone’s plate for making another cold prediction.

It’s more than just wanting winter to be over. Most of us have a problem with waiting. Though waiting is difficult for us as Americans, waiting has been a difficulty for human beings all the way back to the beginning. Most of us would rather do essentially anything but wait. 

Yet waiting is part of life. More than that, waiting is a vital part of a healthy spiritual life. Depending on what translation of Scripture that you use, the word wait in some form is used some 400 times in the Bible. 

To be honest, waiting on the Lord may be one of the most difficult aspects of the Christian life. Waiting on the Lord requires patient trust We live by the adage: Don’t just stand there, do something. While God often says to us: Don’t just do something, stand there. Waiting means that we give God the benefit of the doubt that He not only knows what He is doing but when He is going to do it.

Waiting is God’s way of seeing if we will trust Him. 

Whether it has to do with our relationships, our finances, our careers, our dreams, our churches or the promises of Scripture, we’re to trust that God knows what He’s doing. Waiting on God reminds us that He is in control and that we’re not.

So, what do we do while we’re waiting? The Bible suggests that during those waiting times we take on the active role of a watchman. As the Psalmist wrote: I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning (Psalm 130:5-6). In ancient times, watchmen vigilantly guarded the city. They watched for enemies who might attack at night. They waited for the sun to come up. They were alert and obedient, ready to respond when needed. When called upon, they immediately sprang into action. 

But watchmen didn’t make things happen. They didn’t control the rising of the sun. They couldn’t speed up the process of the dawning of a new day. A watchman knew the difference between his job and God’s job.

As Byran Lorrits wisely said, The only thing worse than waiting on God is wishing that you had. In our culture, we want to fix things. We want to fix our problems, relationships, conflicts, careers, habits and even our friends. Fixing situations and people are trying to expedite the rising of the sun. We need to continually be reminded that we are not God (Aren’t you glad?). As Christ-followers, our responsibility is to be watchmen. It means that we need to have a watchman’s attitude: a confident and alert expectation that God will do what He said He will do. He always has and He always will, but we must wait on His timing. The bottom line is that we must simply trust our Heavenly Father!

Waiting on the Lord allows God to do His work in His time. 

Okay, be honest. When you’re driving, do you try to guess which lane is fastest? Do you evaluate clerks at the store, evaluating who might be quicker? 

That’s our problem when it comes to waiting on the Lord. Not only do we want to do God’s work, we want to speed up His process…but God’s work takes time. Look at every person that God used in Scripture. Nearly every one of them went through a period of waiting, many of them long periods.  

William Carey, the father of the modern missionary movement, waited seven years before his first convert in India, as did Adoniram Judson in Burma. And if you’re on mission as Christ-followers are to be, you struggle with waiting for loved ones and friends to trust the gospel that you’ve shared with them. You keep praying, sharing…and waiting.

As a pastor, I struggle with waiting. I want to speed up the growth process of our church and its ministries. I see so much that we could and should be doing. I see many unmet needs. I see the hurts of people. I drive through our community and am brokenhearted at the thought of so many people spending eternity without Christ. I have a vision from God to reach those people, and I want it to be a reality now. So, I pray and ask the Lord to intervene. “Why not now? Why not make it happen today?”

Waiting for someone to come to Christ nearly always includes a period of waiting. The same is true of revival and spiritual renewal. We keep praying for God to work but we must wait because waiting is usually God’s plan!

It’s said that the Chinese bamboo tree is one of the most remarkable plants on earth. Once the gardener plants the seed, he will see nothing but a single shoot coming out of the bulb – for five full years! That tiny shoot, however, must have daily food and water. During all the time the gardener is caring for the plant, the exterior shoot will grow less than an inch.

At the end of five years, however, the Chinese bamboo will perform an incredible feat. It will grow an amazing ninety feet tall in only ninety days! So, you ask: When did the tree actually grow? During the first five years, or during those last ninety days?

The answer lies in the unseen part of the tree, the underground root system. During the first five years, the fibrous root structure spreads deep and wide in the earth, preparing to support the incredible heights the tree will eventually reach.

If God wanted to grow mushrooms, He could do that overnight, but when He wants to grow a mighty oak, it takes years. What do we want to be, a mushroom or an oak? If we want to be an oak, it takes waiting and it’s well worth the wait. God wants you and me to be oaks of His spiritual strength! 

What happens to our souls while we wait is just as important as what we are waiting for. And the One we are waiting for will always be worth the wait. Punxsutawney Phil is on to a biblical truth – it’s spiritually healthy for us to learn to wait!