5. Welcome to day 5 of our 4 week prayer adventure.

Yesterday we saw three things about God’s character that can give us hope. Another way that Jeremiah, and us too, can receive hope is by recalling how God works in these situations and some appropriate things for us to do.

“The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”Lamentations 3:25-36

1. Wait patiently and pray while you are waiting. 3:25 This is active waiting, not just passive waiting. We don’t like to just sit and wait. One year, right before New Year’s Day, I was getting sick. I could tell I had a sinus infection so I tried to get into the doctor’s office; this was on a Friday, right before the New Year’s long weekend. Apparently all of Minneapolis was seeing the doctor that day because they said there was not one opening with any doctor or nurse practitioner anywhere in the Twin Cities for that day. So, my option then was to go to Urgent Care and wait. When I got there they said the wait would be about 2 hours. So I was waiting, everyone around me was coughing, had masks on, it was the last place I wanted to be. After 3 ½ hours I was seen by a doctor for about one minute, given a prescription for my sinus infection and I quickly left. Fortunately, I had brought things to do while waiting because Deb had warned me, be prepared to wait a long time. We don’t like to wait. But even if there is nothing else you can do, you can pray. Jeremiah said the Lord is good to those who seek Him. We can learn to wait patiently and for one thing, pray while we wait.

2. Wait quietly. 3:26-28 Rather than moan and complain as we tend to do, seek the Lord and see what it is He might be trying to teach you. While we are waiting, don’t quarrel with God, rather trust Him quietly.

Lose any accusing tongue and a pointing finger, that does no good. Seek to silence all distrustful thoughts knowing that to those who love Him, He has everything exactly timed for good.

3. Submit voluntarily.3:29 When it says ‘mouth in dust’, it’s implying a complete surrender to the Lord. Why is this? Because of 3:31-33. When God disciplines His children, and what father does not discipline his kids, it’s not that His love has been suspended. It is really an expression of His concern. He loves us too much to leave us the way we are.

His discipline is never spontaneous or arbitrary as ours might be. His ways are always justified. His ways are always fair, while remember, our enemy never fights fair. God’s discipline is prompted by love and it’s temporary. It is but an intermission, a commercial, an interlude before again His mercy is experienced by those who seek Him.

May each of us keep on doing what God says to do here and that is to seek Him. And one doesn’t need to be in a church service to do that. Maybe that is one of the many things the Lord is teaching His people, that while there is no substitute for church and being with people, yet while we can’t, we can joyfully seek Him, worship and honor Him 7 days a week!