Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Waiting on God Takes Work | David's Life in 22 Stories | (1 Sam. 24)

Episode Date: November 7, 2019

If you're like me, you hate waste, and waiting usually seems like a huge waste of time. Time is one of our most important assets, and waiting can literally feel like we're wasting our lives away. God promised David he would be king, but David had to wait on God for decades before He fulfilled His promise. David's story shows that waiting on God is not passive but actually very active. Waiting on God takes a lot of work. Learn how to actively wait on God as https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/keith-simon/ (Keith) continues our series on https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcast-series/david-in-22-stories/ (David in 22). To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO (Facebook), https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO. Links Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO (https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO) Instagram: https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO (https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO) Twitter: https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo) Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we're working through the story of David's life in First and Second Samuel. I hate to wait. You're with me, right? One of the most frustrating things in the world is walking into a Walmart or a grocery store, and they've got like 36 checkout lines.

But most of them are closed. They've got like two open, and there's a long line at each one of them. And you're like, what's the point of having all these checkout lanes if they're not open at the same time? It drives me crazy because I hate to wait, especially when there's no reason to. I hate to wait on the phone. I hate to wait at a stoplight. I hate to wait in traffic. I hate to wait on slow internet.

And all this is a problem because there are times that God calls us to wait on him. And the truth is that we're not very good at waiting. especially if we have nothing to do while we wait. There's a story in the New York Times about a guy named Alex Stone, and he talks about how at the Houston Airport, they were getting all kinds of complaints because people were having to wait too long at the baggage claim. So they tried to solve it by hiring more baggage handlers,

and that worked a little bit, but still people were having to wait a long time, at least in their mind they were, and therefore the complaint still kept coming in. So the airport executives tried a different strategy, And what they did is they put more distance between the arrival gates and the baggage claim. So people had to walk further to get from their plane to get their baggage. And by the time they got to the baggage claim, the walk was long enough that the bags were there.

Or at least if not there, they were soon there. And so people didn't have to wait near as long. And the complaints went away. Now understand that the bags got to the baggage claim at the same time they always had. It's just that people were busy walking from their plane to get their bags. That's why the complaints went away. See, that fits with the research done at MIT by a professor who said that if we are occupied, we don't mind waiting. It's when we're unoccupied and we're sitting there that we hate to wait.

So that comes back to our relationship with God, because sometimes God calls us to wait and it feels like we're doing nothing. But maybe that's not how we should think about waiting. Maybe we should think about waiting as something more active than passive. But before we get there, we need to go through 1st Samuel 24 where David is challenged to wait on God, to wait on God's timing. In 1 Samuel 24, we see that Saul is hunting down David, trying to eliminate his rival to the throne. And Saul hears that David's in the area, so he takes 3,000 specially trained troops. and he intensifies the search. Now, at some point, Saul's got to go to the bathroom,

which turns out to be number two, so he goes into this cave to relieve himself. And can I just say that I love the fact that the Bible tells us that the king had to go poop and therefore he went into a cave? I mean, it just makes the whole story feel far more real instead of kind of polished or airbrushed or photoshopped. Yes, even king's poop and they go look for a spot in the cave to do it.

But this is where the story gets a little crazy because it turns out that David and his fighting men are hiding in the back of that same cave. So imagine how unlucky Saul is. First of all, he's got to do his business at the wrong time. And then when he finally finds the right spot to do it, it turns out that he has chosen the place that David and his men are using as a hideout. So David and his men can't believe their luck. Here comes the king, their enemy in. The one who's trying to kill them is coming to go poop. And so in verse four, the men said,

This is the day that the Lord spoke of when he said to you, I will give your enemy into your hands for you to deal with as you wish. So do you see what David's men are doing? As they're saying, look, Saul coming in here to relieve himself is God's gift to you. This is your chance. So David responds, and it says, he crept up unnoticed and cut off a corner of Saul's robe. He didn't kill Saul, but he cuts off a corner of his robe. And this turns out to be a bigger deal than you might initially think.

Verse 5. Afterward, David was conscience-stricken for having cut off a corner of his robe. He said to his men, the Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord's anointed, or lay my hand on him, for he is the anointed of the Lord. See, the robe that the king was wearing, well, it was connected to the king. So an attack on the robe was an attack on the king, and an attack on the king was attack on God. Because this is the person that God had anointed. This is the person that God had made king of Israel.

See, God had anointed Saul as king, and he still was king. But God had also told David that one day he would be king. Now, David is having to wait on God. And that's the issue in the cave. Is David going to wait on God in God's time to make him king? Or is he going to take things into his own hands? It would have been so easy for David to rationalize that this is God giving Saul to me. I mean, what are the chances that Saul comes in here into this cave that we're using as our hideout?

what are the chances he comes in here? Well, we're back here. This is my chance. God must want me to do this. He could have justified it. I mean, after all, Saul was trying to kill David. And so David could have said, I have every right to defend myself. Now here's the key verse. It's verse 12. David says, May the Lord judge between you and me, and may the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me. But my hands will not touch you. Do you hear how David's thinking and processing all this? He's saying, look, I'm going to let God solve this. God is going to be the judge between you and me.

The Lord will avenge the wrongs you've done me. But I'm not going to touch you. I'm not going to take this into my own. hands. I'm going to wait on God and his justice. There's a similar story to this back in the book of Genesis, and it deals with Abraham and Sarah and Hagar. And perhaps you remember that God gave Abraham and Sarah a promise that in their old age, they would have a child. But after that promise is made, time elapses, and their bodies continue to get old, and it just seems impossible that God's going to come through on its promise. And so Sarah decide she's going to help God out. She's going to

take things into her own hands. And so she takes her concubine Hagar and she gives her to Abraham and says, sleep with her so that we can have a child. Now, that's Hagar thinking or a Hagar solution. It's taking life into our own hands and helping God instead of waiting on him. Maybe you're waiting on God for a job or a different job or a spouse or for some relationship in your life to change or you're waiting on God for a child or heal you. Maybe you have health issues and you're waiting on God for a different report and it's hard to wait because remember it's hard to wait when we don't have anything to do. It's hard to wait for our baggage at the baggage claim. But waiting on God is not just sitting around. It's not unoccupied.

time. Waiting on God is active. It's actively trusting that God is good. It's actively trusting that he's at work. It's actively believing that God wants the best for you. Psalm 3410 is a verse that's gotten me through a lot in my life. And it says this. It says, the lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who trust the Lord lack no good thing. when I trust God, I can be confident that I won't lack a good thing. Not only will I not lack it, in other words, not only will God provide for me what I need and what's best for me, but he will provide it at the right time. God is never late. So I can wait on him actively trusting in his goodness and his provision and his wisdom of what's best for me.

Wait on God. Put your hope in him. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.