The hymn Teach Me Lord to Wait

 

          That is one of the favorite songs of an elder, James Arnold Deckard, under whom I worked before we moved to Romania. The song was written and set to music in 1953 by Stuart Hamblen. It is based on the words of Isaiah 40.

 

          Isaiah lived and preached during the time Israel was invaded by the Assyrian nation. It was a hard, trying time. It would have been humiliating and depressing to have your leaders - religious leaders and civil leaders - hauled off in chains to a foreign country. The Assyrian captivity was to punish Israel for her sins, notably idolatry. Those who had remained faithful, however, were not spared the humiliation and depression.

 

          In that atmosphere, God led Isaiah to write the words of Isaiah 40. In verse 12, the prophet asks the question: "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?" Whom are you going to trust?

 

          Isaiah gives one possible answer: idols? "An idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains. He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move" (19-20). Clearly an idol won't save us.

 

          The real answer? "It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness" (22-23). That's the God of Heaven. He is the One in whom we trust. Even when life seems out of balance.

 

          Especially for the Israelites, forgiveness for their sins would happen one day in the future. "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. A voice cries: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God" (verses 1-3). Verse three, we recognize, is a prophecy of the coming of John the baptizer who was the herald of Jesus Christ.

 

          That promise was as sure and stable as anything with which the Israelites were familiar. Indeed, the promises of God are more firm than the rock of Gibraltar. "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever" (verse 8).

You can trust God. He rules over the affairs of men. Comfort and healing come from God. You should build your life on God's Word. 

 

          "They who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint" (40:31).

 

--Paul Holland