Isaiah 30:18: “And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted that he might be merciful upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment, blessed are all that wait for him.”
“He was there all the time,
Waiting patiently in line,
He was there all the time.”
-Gary Paxton-
The above lyrics were written by the same man who helped write Monster Mash. Yet in those words you have his life’s testimony. The idea of God standing in line waiting for His turn never really occurred to me until I heard this song and my first thought was, “Is that Biblical?” Is God really waiting for me to make the first move? This is when I discovered Isaiah 30:18. The Lord is waiting to be gracious to me. Ok, rule number one, never assume that because you like something everyone else will like it. But mercy Maude, that is profound, God is waiting for me, waiting until the right moment to be gracious. Waiting until I have exhausted all of life’s opportunities to realize that He and He alone offers what I am searching for.
There are a few words in Hebrew for wait. In Isaiah 40:31 we learn that those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. This wait here is qavah which is a twisting or binding. It is the word used for making rope. Ever take a close look at a rope. The ancient method of making rope is still used today. Hundreds of thin strands of fabric, each when alone can easily be broken, but when tightly bound together with hundreds of other strands of fabric it forms a rope that cannot be broken. So in Isaiah 40:31 this waiting is just not sitting back, patiently twiddling your thumbs, but it is a process of binding yourself to God and the more you bind yourself to God, the stronger you become.
Isaiah, however, uses a different word in 30:18 for wait which is chakah which is a patient waiting, like someone waiting for a bus or as Gary Paxton put it, waiting patiently in line. However, this word is in a Piel imperfect form so it is a continuing process, it is a patient waiting. The word is spelled Chet, Kap, Hei. The Chet indicates moving to a higher level. In other words it is like waiting in line and moving forward. God is patiently letting us run through all our fleshly endeavors trying to satisfy all our needs. Then suddenly He appears next in line. It is then that we discover the next letter in chakah (waiting) and that is the Kap which is the word for palm of the hand. We discover that all this time He has been holding us in the palm of His hand. Thus, we finally do what Gary Paxton did after years of searching for some rainbow end. We invite God to enter our lives and he gives us the final letter to the word chakah (wait), the culmination of His waiting which is the Hei, His presence filled with His graciousness and mercy.
But don’t listen to me, let Isaiah 30:18 tell us all about it when it says, blessed are those who chakah (wait) for Him. Only our chakah(waiting) is not in a Piel imperfect form, it is a Qal participle. In others blessed are those who have been waiting for God. Unbeknownst to us, we have been waiting for Him all the time; we just did not see it. Thank God His waiting has been in a Piel Imperfect rather than a Piel Perfect. If that were the case, we would be out of luck. If chakah were in a perfect form, He would have given up on us long ago and moved on to some other line.
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