The Waiting Game

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you,
and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.
Is 30:18 (ESV)

One of the board members of an organization I work for has distributed a daily prayer sheet that begins each day with a verse or two. This was today's verse, and as I began to meditate on it, some exciting things started to emerge.

The verse is chaistic, with the first and last lines forming one idea and the second and third lines, a supporting or explanatory idea. In addition, lines 1 and 4 display a second chiasm of their own: "Therefore the Lord waits" connects with "those who wait for him," and "to be gracious to you" connects with "blessed are all." (Here, a note to the reader who may not be familiar with poetic chiasm. If you look at the verse above and draw lines that illustrate these connections, you will see that the lines form an "X." The Greek letter "X" is called, "Chi," hence the name for the structure, "chiasm.")

Taking a look at that second chiasm, we ask, What is the writer trying to tell us? First, it seems that he is saying, "God is waiting for us to wait." That sounds like a quick way to get nothing accomplished. Countless are the times Cherie and I have found ourselves stalemated because I was waiting for her while, it turns out, she was waiting for me. Such mutual inaction, however, is not what this is about. This is more like waiting at a stop light for the cross traffic to get the red light that tells them to wait so I can move. God is telling us, "I'm waiting for you to stop moving so I can have my turn." Now that makes sense. How often I go about my plans, seeking my agenda, trying to find my happiness in my successes that fulfill my dreams and my vision, when God is saying, "Let me know when you decide to stop. I'd like to have a turn."

Have a turn doing what? That's the second idea in that second chiasm: He is waiting to be gracious to us so that we can be blessed. Looking back at verses 15 & 16, He is offering salvation and strength, but we are riding off on our horses trying to win our own battles. He is offering all that we need, but we are so busy trying to meet our own needs that we miss his blessings and His grace. He is waiting for me to stop fighting my own battles and stop seeking my own happiness, my own purpose, my own meaning and just wait for Him to shower His grace on me and fill me with everything the world can't possibly give me. Oh God, cause me to stop! Let me see that my hope is in You, not in my own endless pursuits.

Now, moving on to the second half of the "big" chiasm -- the second and third lines. "Therefore" tells us to look back again: Because God longs to be gracious to us, He exalts Himself. The next phrase repeats the thought: "To show mercy to you" is the reason that He exalts himself. To our way of thinking, that seems backwards. How can God's self-exaltation be connected to His blessing us, or his display of mercy toward us? Shouldn't it say, "therefore God condescended to us..."?

Indeed, God did condescend to us in His Son who "did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself..." (Phil 1:6-7, RSV). But the that passage continues (v. 9): "Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name." (NIV). Indeed, it was not the humiliation of Christ alone, but rather the exaltation of Christ in His resurrection and his eternal station at the Fathers right hand that brings us salvation. As Paul said, "if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins." (1Cor.15:17, NASB) Indeed, it's not just here, but throughout the Bible God commits and recommits Himself to the pursuit of His glory above all other things. It's been said before and bears repeating: If it's a sin for us to worship anything above God, it is also a sin for God to worship anything above God.

This brings us to the third line of this verse: "For the Lord is a God of justice." Justice means that God does what is right. It is right for Him to magnify His own glory. It would be wrong for Him to let sin go unpunished. It would be unjust for God to allow our sinful, prideful, independent ways to take precedence over His rightful requirement of absolute sovereignty. Therefore, He guarded His own justice, His own righteousness, His own glory while at the same time provided the way for us to receive His gracious blessings in Christ. We just need to get out of the way and let God be God! He is waiting for me -- for you -- to stop and wait for Him.


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