   |
    |
|
|
|
Waiting on the LordBy: Joseph H. MurrayI recently heard the story told of the hawk,and the buzzard having a conversation, and the hawk was deriding the buzzard for his laziness. But the buzzard sat in mute silence as the hawk made his routine flight over a nearby farmer’s chicken pen looking for an opportunity to make a quick catch of one of his chickens. He didn’t know that the farmer was watching him all the time, and on his next trip around, he was brought down by a shot from the farmer’s gun and fell at the buzzard’s feet. The buzzard said, “Just waiting on the Lord.” I wonder, my dear friend, if you are like the hawk or the buzzard. The hawk was, at least, working for the blessing hoped for, but the buzzard was doing nothing, and the blessing fell at his feet. Some believers are like the buzzard; they never put forth any effort to do anything to earn a blessing, but are always saying, “I’m waiting on the Lord to work it out.” Oh, how far this assumption is from God’s ways, for “faith without works is dead” (James 2:20). I’m certain we cannot be justified in every case to sit still and wait for the Lord to dump a blessing at our feet, as was true in the case of the hawk and the buzzard story. For had not the woman with the issue of blood pressed her way through the multitude to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment, she would have never been healed. The buzzard was assuming a proper stance in waiting for something dead to plunder over and devour, for he was put here for that purpose. A born scavenger is he upon the earth to devour the leftovers of others’ kill. Humility is a wonderful quality, but let’s don’t overdo it, assuming a humble attitude puts us in line to dine at the Master’s table. “For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet: the woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs. And He said unto her, for this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter. And when she came to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed” (Mark 7:25–30). This woman, being willing to fall into the category of the buzzard, or the dogs, and to take the leftovers, was made worthy of God’s best. Hence, she received the petition desired of the Lord. However humble, though, she was nonetheless like the hawk in her persistence to receive this blessing. So, I see by this lesson that a blessed child of God must be willing to assume a position of low degree to attain to God’s favor. In our much saying of how to receive a blessing, there is much more to be said of giving or being a blessing to others. I think our Lord called this “working the works of God.” “And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing” (John 9:1–7). Jesus, on another occasion, after his encounter with the woman at the well, said, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work” (John 4:34). Jesus, in his pilgrim journey here below, was hated and persecuted all the way. His purpose and motive in carrying out the Father’s plan made him at one with God, even as we are one with God when we perform His will for our lives. It was for his (Jesus’) declaration of “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30) that caused the Jews to stone him. “Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?” (John 10:32). He assured the Pharisees that he was not a blasphemer, and said, “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him. Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand” (John 10:37–39). |
 |
|
|
