What are you waiting for, what plans have you set in place for your life that you are just waiting for to come into fruition, or do you have any? Is your life spent in the bondage of money, just trying to make ends meet, food, housing, electricity, cable, gas, phone, what so many might call the basic necessities, when all but one of them are far from needs. Getting up and performing the daily grind, hoping that the one who had enough intuition and drive in the world to start a business will continue in his endeavors so that you who did not will have a job tomorrow.
Maybe your only waiting for the weekend, so that by Sunday evening you can prepare yourself for the dreaded fact that on Monday you can wake up to the alarm clock again, wishing it was the weekend, looking forward to that approaching holiday so you can have an extra day away from what is required of you to exist in the world, money. Perhaps you have a vacation planned, a seven-day excursion to visit far away friends and family, or a place that you enjoy that removes the continuous grind from your mind for a short period of time. Six months or more of planning, so that you can wait another year to do it again, it comes, it goes, you return to the repetition, waiting for the next chance to explore, to go and see, to escape. It may be retirement that you are waiting for, hoping that not only the money that you have saved and invested will last as long as your failing and ailing body does, hoping to go, see and experience all those places that the obligations of life in the younger years kept you from doing.
Perhaps you’re just waiting to die, you have found that none of those things you waited so long for then experienced, then became just a distant, fading memory were never fulfilling, and anything that you are waiting for now will be just as fruitless. That there will be nothing more than what all the previous excursions of your life were, fleeting, and as you grow older they all seem to come and go quicker than they ever did before. What’s the point in waiting in anticipation for something, anything that does not last, that can have no more real value than a trinket in the curio cabinet, a photo in the album, or a memory that fades as time goes on, what are you waiting for? “What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?” (Eccl. 1:3) All in this world and all of this world that we seek after is vanity and vexation of Spirit my friends, what you are waiting for here is not worth waiting for, not one thing of it will last, it will pass and if you are of this ilk, you will spend your life in a wasted and sorrowful effort in the continual pursuit of waiting for that which will only come to pass. All that you are waiting for will only be that, something that will come to pass.
I know of a couple whose money is running out, who in a few short years will have no viable income to speak of, those dreams and plans that they have made will not materialize, there is a good possibility that they will become what the world calls destitute, when this happens, they believe that their love for each other will hold them together, and perhaps it will, but love does not pay the rent, does not pay the bills, and makes for no filling of the stomach. You must understand that what you have planned, what you were hoping for, what you were waiting for may not appear. To say that our Lord will provide for all of your needs, and to confuse our needs with the wants is foolish, and will lead you to the truth that all is vanity and vexation of Spirit. If you seek the kingdom of God first, then all of these things shall be added unto you, (Matt. 6:33) and what are those things? Food, water, clothing, that’s it, but look on the bright side, every day will be the weekend, no more of the burdens of the world, no concerns with money, because you don’t have any, no more daily grind, because you no longer work for someone, no bills, no dishes to wash, no more waiting for anything, because all has been taken from you.
If that is where the Lord wants you, that is where you will be, what is worse, being taken captive by the enemy and held captive with only food and water each day, or being held captive by the world and all of those things that you desire, that you have come to expect, that you believe you deserve. If our Lord wants this couple poor and destitute, living on the street, then that is where they will be, but if they think their love for each other is going to hold them together, they are sadly mistaken, they will fail. If each of them individually does not rest in Christ and the assurances of His promises, and place the other second behind Him, it will not matter if they are destitute or have adequate finances for their lifetimes, they will fail because our Lord will not take second place to any. It is easy to say “Where He leads I will follow” when you are sitting in front of the television in a nice, comfortable house with a refrigerator full of food, but what is easier if the Lord decides that extreme poverty is the path that He wants you to take, a cataclysmic event that happens and all is taken from you over night as it was with Job, (Job 1:21) or to watch all that you worked for slowly dwindle away over a period of years. Patience is learned very quickly my friends when all you are waiting for is your next meal, because that is all there is to wait for. Where He leads I will follow didn’t work so well for those when He stopped feeding them, did it.
Integrity is us remaining who we are even when the circumstances surrounding us change, and I believe that we are being prepared by our Lord to test that integrity. It takes very little for the Christian whose eyes are open to see that the hand of God is moving in this world, that He is preparing to move in ways that no one alive today has ever seen, He is warning, but are you listening? It matters very little when this couple spends their last coin, money, as we know it today, may have absolutely no value whatsoever very soon, but the statement may still remain to be tested, will they continue in their integrity, will their faith in Christ remain strong no matter the circumstances, or will they falter. If you want to pray for individuals who are facing these possibilities, pray for them to be strong, yes, but pray more earnestly that they would do nothing in their lives that would dishonor the name of Christ, pray that those would not love their lives right up to the very end, but that their own focus, no matter the circumstances, rich in money or poor, sick or in perfect health, would be to bring glory to God, to lift up His name above the Heavens. It is our Lord that directs the steps of man, (Prov. 16:9) and these steps are to be placed exactly where Christ is leading, any other path will lead to vanity and vexation of Spirit, and you will be left only continuously waiting for that which you were going to lose anyway.
