Waiting On the LORD

It has been quite a while since I last posted, and my life has changed quite a bit since the last time you read any of my words on here. At its core my life is still the same (married father of two, Jesus follower, fanatical tea drinker, gentleman adventurer, storyteller) but recently things took a bit of a turn that I hadn’t expected. I have become a teacher. In fact…given the title of my blog here…it might be said that I have become something of a “full time Narnian.”

I have accepted a position as a middle school humanities teacher at my son’s Classical Christian school. Part of what I will be teaching is the last three books in the Chronicles of Narnia series. I will absolutely be “Chasing Aslan in the Real World” in living color. There will also be some history, grammar and fairy tales tossed in there, but at its core my life will in some manner be revealing some of the deeper things in those wonderful tales. For the seventh graders, my class will be their last foray into Narnia by reading “The Last Battle.” Now, of course I know that they will read it on their own someday, but I am taking seriously the charge that I will be responsible for their last guided tour through those fabled realms.

I am not in any way a trained teacher, but they called on me anyway recognizing some manner of potential and passion within me. My goodness, it has been a roller coaster ride trying to get up to speed. The phrase “like drinking from a firehose” has been uttered more than ten times in my presence. The simile is very apt.

The other day I was sitting at my new desk. It is such a beauty. She is a massive solid wooden thing I would never attempt to move. It is stained dark, has deep drawers and more than a few “battle scars” that are mysterious to me. I’m more than a little proud to sit behind her, and I’m fully aware that I am making her sound like a ship of the line from the World That Was.

As I say, I was sitting at my new desk trying to take in this vast amount of information and struggling to assimilate it and make a plan. Not for the first time, a deep anxiety and fear just gripped me and would not let go of my heart. I was almost mentally paralyzed by it, so I did what I always do when I am in such a situation. I closed my book, and started to clean. It is true that I am not the cleanest person in the world and yet in times of deep distress, when I find myself full of a surplus anxious energy, I start to organize and clean. So full of this horrible feeling was I that I would not have been surprised if I went on a three hour cleaning binge, but it was not to be so.

I pushed back in my chair and opened some drawers. The second drawer that I opened had a sheet of paper from the teacher before me who sat right where I sat for a few years prior to me. The paper was covered with verses, and at the top was the title “Scriptures for When You Are Battling Anxiety and Stress.” Well, as a seasoned follower of Jesus, I recognized the Divine care happening in that moment. I cocked my head, looked up beyond the ceiling, chuckled and said, “Ok, LORD. I’m listening.”

There was one particular verse that stood out for me. It almost glowed in print, like it was done in a sort of double bold font. I am at the age where I have to take off my glasses to read but even before all the letters were clear this verse stood out. It was actually two verses. Psalm 27:13-14.

I decided that if the Holy Spirit was going to show up then my full attention was required. For privacy sake I moved off to the side into one of the desks where I would not be seen from the door. The Holy Spirit shows up sometimes and I cannot predict how I will react. There’s nothing like full sobbing to make your new fellow employees wonder about the new guy. I chose to take 10 minutes to just focus on the words and they are as follows from the NKJV.

“I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
That I would see the goodness of the LORD
In the land of the living.
Wait on the LORD;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the LORD!”

Now, this Psalm is one of those Psalms of rejoicing where the enemies are shamed, the accusers are silenced, and David is no longer being a gloomy panda. He has seen the LORD work and is in full party in the temple mode.

His candor is absolutely refreshing. David admits that things were so very bad that he would have lost heart. BUT…for the fact that he believed that he would see the goodness of the LORD…not in some far off future heavenly place…but here and now in this life, on earth, in the land of the living. Sometimes we forget that.

I have heard Christians actually tell me that we absolutely, one hundred percent can NOT experience anything of God here on this side of Heaven. All it takes it actually reading the scriptures to see that this is not true. Every story in the Bible for all time, cover to cover, is of stories where people absolutely, one hundred percent DID experience things of God on this side of heaven. So why would that change?

David goes on to encourage us all to “wait on the LORD”. This is a really interesting phrase to me. All of my life I have heard it used in sermons as a call to simply sit and do nothing until God shows up. Just sit. Just wait. Just be passive. However, that is not the case when we look into the original language. To “wait upon the LORD” actually means to look for Him, to seek Him, to actively try to find Him in whatever situation you happen to be in. You are to expect that the LORD is already there in it. Why? Because why wouldn’t an omnipresent, omniscient, all-powerful God be anywhere else? He’s literally everywhere all the time in every kind of situation. So…He is already there. You just need to try and see Him and what He is doing.

The next part of the verse was very intriguing for me. David says “Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart.” Brothers and Sisters, that is a conditional statement. We must first be of good courage…and then He will strengthen our heart. What does that even mean?

The Hebrew for the first have has the feeling of actually taking courageous action. You know the right way to move forward because you know what is right and wrong, and you press forward even though the odds seem against you. When you do that, the LORD shows up to strengthen your heart. Why? Because in the midst of battles, hearts sometimes (read that “often”) fail. In many ways the majority of we humans are cowardly creatures. We like low-risk high-reward situations and at the first sign of adversity we often crumble or flee. Sometimes both. But as children of God…we are called to act courageously and actually act. In the thick of the battle, when we take action, the LORD will keep our hearts from faltering.

So, there I sat and a student’s desk given a lesson that I will carry with me forever. I am in a very daunting situation that could swallow the very heart of me. Whenever I feel that way I am to expect to find God in the situation, no matter how dark it is. I am to move forward courageously and He, not me, will make sure my heart does not turn into jelly within my chest.

As the Psalmist…I too encourage you…Wait upon the LORD. Expect Him, seek to find Him, in whatever darkness you may find yourself in. Because He is already there.