God's Work Takes Time // When God Speaks, Pt 8

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Sometimes other people seem to want to do things in their own good time, a time that doesn’t fit with our timetable. It’s incredibly frustrating isn’t it? And sometimes, sometimes God wants to do His things in His good time too. Then what?

Waiting for something that you really want, waiting and waiting and waiting, is incredibly hard. Particularly if, during that waiting, you’re enduring some kind of hardship. Some sort of suffering. Something that you’ve been asking God for, again and again, for Him to deal with. To bring a resolution to the problem, and end your suffering.

You’ve no doubt been in places where sometimes, it doesn’t seem as though a resolution, an end, is even possible. How long do I have to wait?

Some people find it surprising that the Bible actually deals with that very question. It contains the heart cries of people who are exactly in that position. Like this particular guy, Psalm 119, verses 84 to 88:

How long must your servant endure? When will you judge those who persecute me? The insolent have dug pitfalls for me; they do not live according to your law. All your commandments are sure; they persecute me with falsehood; help me! They have almost made an end of me on the earth, but I have not forsaken your precepts. In your steadfast love give me life, that I may keep the testimonies of your mouth.

Hmm, it seems like this man is in fear of life itself. We never find out who "they" are, but they are certainly his enemies and they are certainly after his life. It doesn’t get any worse than that. And in that place, it’s easy to shake your fist at God, to be bitter and resentful of God, because he’s not showing up.

Yet notice how this man asks the question: How long must your servant endure? The psalmist remains God’s servant, even when his life is being threatened. This isn’t some fairy-tale. It’s a real man, praying to a real God about the injustice and the danger that he’s facing. And despite those things, he remains faithful to God. He continues to trust God – all your commandments are sure – and he’s not swayed or drawn down to the level of the evil that’s pursuing him.

Even though ‘they’ have almost made an end of him on this earth, he has not forsaken God’s precepts. And he pleads his life into God’s hands, so that when this stuff ends, when his suffering ends, he can continue to do good on this earth. That’s powerful stuff!

If you’re suffering right now, I don’t know when or how your suffering will end. I don’t know how long you still have to endure.

But I know this: In the middle of your suffering, in the middle of even the most dangerous and life-threatening of circumstances, you can choose to remain God’s servant, to do good, to stay in God’s Word and to plead your case, even your life, into God’s hands. In fact that’s the very thing that He wants you to do. Because His love for you reaches to the heavens. His faithfulness to the skies.

When a storm blows in on your life, you need to know the truth about God. You need to know, not just in your head, but in your heart and in your experience. As you look back on your life, what are some of the amazing things that God has already done for you.

I remember, even before I knew God, when I was a three packet a day smoker, He took me to a place, where I watched someone die of lung cancer. I haven’t smoked a single cigarette since and that was over thirty-four years ago. I was set free from a serious addiction in that instant.

God’s hand is on our lives even when we have absolutely no idea. And when we know His love and His faithfulness like that, in our hearts and in our experience, we can, like the psalmist, proclaim:

Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens. Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth, and it stands fast. By your appointment they stand this day, for all things are your servants. If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. (Psalm 119 verses 89 to 92)

When the whole earth shakes and trembles the Word of God is still firmly fixed in the heavens. God’s Word is unshakeable and immovable. When generations pass, as they do, His faithfulness endures. That’s what I call a rock-solid foundation. And it’s that sort of foundation that you and I need in our lives to withstand all the challenges and the storms and the wilderness experiences.

The reason I open my Bible most mornings is because that’s where I choose for my foundations to be. I, like you, have things that come along to rock me and to shake me. Things that could easily blow me over.

I so get it when the psalmist says there, if God’s law, God’s Word, hadn’t been his delight, he would have perished in his affliction.

Let me make it plain and clear. Unmistakable. In God’s Word is your refuge, in God’s Word is your strength. When you sit and listen to Him speaking into your heart, something happens to change you in the most incredible way. I know … I know that many people struggle hugely to get into God’s Word, either because they think that they don’t have time, or they imagine that it’s too difficult.

But take just that one Scripture, Psalm 119, verses 89 to 92, just spend some time in those three verses in the middle of your affliction and I guarantee you that the Holy Spirit will show up. I guarantee you that God will take that Word of His and breathe courage into your heart and life into your weary bones. Because that’s what He does and that’s what He wants to do.

When God speaks, He speaks courage, He speaks power, He speaks life, He speaks comfort, He speaks wisdom into our lives. He just does.

So that when that storm blows in on your life, the single most important thing that you need to survive it, those strong foundations, will be there and ready for the storm. Foundations that go deep down into God’s Word to hold you up as the storms of life try to tear you down. We need a life that is solidly grounded in the truth of who God is, how much He loves us and how He responds to His people when they’re in need.

Without that sort of a foundation, into His solid truth, your house is going to blow over. That’s exactly what Jesus said:

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24-27)

So, what’s the heart of what I’m sharing with you today? Simply this. God is speaking. He hasn’t stopped speaking. He will never stop speaking. And whilst He speaks to us in many different ways, the main way, the most reliable way, the most powerful way, is through His Word the Bible.

And if you’re someone who struggles to get into the Bible yourself, then don’t listen to me today. Listen to Jesus. Listen to His call to you to hear His words and do them so that you will be like that man who built his house on solid rock.

Or, would you prefer to build your house on the sand, so that when the storm comes, it will come crashing down.

They’re the two choices available to each one of us. And for you, in your life, the decision to be a man or woman of God’s Word, or not, is entirely yours.