The Value of Waiting

So what happens when you set aside time to spend with God?

You may hear His voice.

David Wilkerson was a young country preacher in the sixties. His custom was to watch television between midnight and two in the morning. He was a night owl, I guess.

After some time, Wilkerson began to think watching television was a waste of time, so he decided to spend those two hours between midnight and two in the morning in prayer. He did this for a time and then something peculiar happened. One night God spoke to him and told him to go to New York City.

Going to New York City was way out of his comfort zone because he was a country boy. Nevertheless, he went to the city and there encountered the street gangs. He led a number of them to Christ, and began establishing homes for former drug addicts. In time, these homes became the ministry he named Teen Challenge. David Wilkerson has gone on to be with the Lord, but his work, Ten Challenge, is now a national ministry that brings thousands of drug addicts through recovery each year.

If Wilkerson hadn’t changed his two hours of television watching into two hours of prayer, none of this would have happened. Why? If he had’t gotten alone with God for this extended time, I doubt that he would have ever heard God’s voice telling him to go to New York City.

At the large church where I was an elder for about twenty years, the sanctuary was open each morning from six to eight for prayer. One morning a young man who had been in the church a long time came over to me and asked, “How do you hear God’s voice? I don’t hear God’s voice.”

Without thinking, I said, “How long are you willing to wait?”

That is a key. God may test you. He may test your motives. He may remain silent until you have proven that your motives are pure. Everything in the kingdom is about motives, not necessarily the actions. If your actions are for the wrong motives, such as gaining recognition for yourself or building your own reputation, well . . . God is not impressed with that. He just may remain silent and not speak to you.

God wants you to seek Him for Him, not for what He can give you.

So you may spend a lot of time with Him, but He doesn’t say anything. He may be waiting until He knows you are there for the right reasons. Then, He will likely speak to you when you least expect it. Once you began hearing His voice, it may surprise you how often He speaks to you.

There is another circumstance in which God may remain silent for a long time. It is that sort of crisis situation when you have to hear from God. Let me tell you what I mean by relating a personal story.

After I had been full-time in ministry for about five years, I reached a place where I really needed to hear from God. We had seen some fruit in five years, but not very much. I had used about $50,000 of my home equity to keep the ministry going. In light of the cost of running the ministry, against the results, it was questionable whether we should continue. I had to know. I had to hear from God.

So I went to a cabin on a small farm about 130 miles north of Minneapolis. The owners were supporters of the ministry, and they would give me the use of a very nice cabin for $10 a night. I went to bed about 9 p.m. and drifted in and out of sleep all night. Every time I woke up, I prayed. The question I was putting before God was, “Should I quit the ministry?”

No answer came for nine hours. Then just as the sun was peeking over the eastern horizon, God spoke.

He said, “Just go a little bit further.”

I could do that. I could go a little bit further. A few months later, with the pastors of the Rush City area, I produced our first event, Littleton Meets Minnesota, which drew twice as many people as the population of Rush City, about 3000 people. That started a string of events that I produced, which eventually reached a total audience of well over 40,000 people.

Now the questions is this: I asked Him if I should quit the ministry as soon as I crawled into bed around nine the previous evening. Why didn’t He answer me then? Why did He wait until the following morning, after I had been in prayer for nine hours?

The answer is very simple, and it makes perfect sense. The weightier the situation you are facing, the longer God waits. Because your decision is life changing, God wants you to hear perfectly clear, so that there will be no question or indecision about what He said.

What must happen to make you hear more clearly? I have mentioned how very important it is to shut out the noise of the world when you want to hear God’s voice. The longer God makes you wait, the quieter your spirit becomes, until when He speaks you are in a condition to hear Him clearly. In my case, I had nine hours to focus, to shut out everything but Him. So when He finally spoke, it was crystal clear. There was no chance of misunderstanding what He said to me.

. . . And that’s why God makes you wait, even if you are very experienced at hearing His voice. Making you wait is a safeguard.

There is another reason, still. The longer you wait for Him to speak, the more precious His words seem to you. And really, in a nut shell, that’s why you want to learn to hear God’s voice.

Check in next week for the next installment of Learning to Hear the Voice of God, posted right here!

Photo was taken by Lorraine of her Father’s old wrist watches