Andrew Murray continues:

Our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he has mercy upon us.(Psalm 123:2)

When man fell from God, he was even more absolutely dependent on Him. There was not the slightest hope of his recovery out of his state of death, except in God, His power and mercy. It is God alone who began the work of redemption; it is God alone who continues and carries it on each moment in each individual believer. Even in the regenerate man there is no power of goodness in himself; he has and can have nothing that he does not each moment receive; waiting on God is just as indispensable, and must be just as continuous and unbroken, just as the breathing maintains his natural life.

It is because Christians do not know their relation to God of absolute poverty and helplessness that they have no sense of the need of absolute and unceasing dependence, or the unspeakable blessedness of continual waiting on God. But when a believer begins to see it, and consent to it-that he by the Holy Spirit must each moment receive what God each moment works- waiting on God becomes his brightest hope and joy. As he apprehends how God- as God, as Infinite Love-delights to impart His own nature to His child as fully as he can, how God is not weary of each moment keeping charge of his life and strength, he wonders that he ever thought otherwise of God than as a God to be waited on all the day. God unceasingly giving and working, His child unceasingly waiting and receiving; this is the blessed life.

“Truly my soul waiteth upon God; from Him cometh my salvation”.(Psalm 62:1) Waiting on God is the ascribing to Him the glory of being All; it is the experiencing that He is All to us.

Listening to all the conversations about coping with the Coronavirus, I’ve noticed that we act as a people as though all the rest of the issues affecting us have gone on vacation. The truth of the matter is that the world, our nation and, yes, all of us as individuals have troubles and problems so large that there are no human solutions for them. If there’s any lesson to be learned from this pandemic, it must be that we are totally dependent upon God. We must acknowledge that with all of our vast resources we have no power to contain or control this little viral bug. As large as our bodies are in comparison to the size of the virus, it has the power to rob our strength, our health and even our lives. The challenges we are facing are too great for mere humanity to cope with much less conquer. With the shutdowns, we will soon be facing shortages, economic downturn, and a multitude of social disorders which will include a rise in drug use and alcoholism as people attempt to cope. As things become more stressful, division, suspicion, and even hatred will surface. Already there is an attempt to find someone to blame. This is just the issues as a result of the virus. Prior to the pandemic, the struggles and challenges facing us were enormous, most beyond human capabilities. Even the church is hard pressed to cope with this crisis. Many simply threw in the towel, closed buildings and are waiting for everything to return to “normal”. I have been told that numbers of churches and pastors are acting as if all this is a hoax and it’s business as usual. I have no doubt that this is probably one of my more serious devotions. I don’t mean to be dark or oppressing but I urge us to be aware of what we are facing. Now here is the good news. First of all God has not abandoned us nor left us to our own abilities. This is the time to move to full dependency upon God. This is the time for Christians to re-evaluate their mission and purpose. This is no time to believe that there will be a magic moment and we will continue as we were previously. As the world panics, we must draw closer into the presence and peace of God. We must find the urgency of inviting the wandering to meet God for He alone is our help, our hope and our answer. We ourselves must spend more time with God than we spend watching the latest news updates. We must pray as we have never prayed before. We must move our pursuit of God to the first priority in our lives. We must abandon our petty differences, especially as believers and recognize that we don’t have time for foolish arguments about temporal things that in the light of eternity and the crisis is a waste of time. Please, I don’t mean to be offensive, I just feel like an ER doctor trying to save a life and the color of the patients socks is unimportant. We must ask ourselves what’s really important and where our source is found. Listen to the words as recorded in 2 Chronicles.

Then the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: “I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place.

2 Chronicles 7:12-15

Dr. John Thompson