“But those who wait on 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.”  (Isaiah 40:31)

How often have you heard these words before?
How often have you quoted this verse to someone else?
How often have you taken these words to heart?

Chances are the answer to all three questions is: “More than once!”

For the most part, we have interpreted the expression “wait” on the Lord to mean staying still in His presence and waiting for Him to fill us up, to infuse His strength into us…or something to that effect.

Moi aussi.

Not that long ago, my friend Matt Tapley, Lead Pastor at Lakemount Worship Center in Grimsby suggested we look at the word “wait” in a different way.

He asked us to consider how a server in a restaurant “waits” on us when we sit down to eat at a particular establishment.

The servers who catch our attention (and our tips) are those who make sure that they pay close attention to what we want–exactly how we want our steak done, our potatoes dressed, etc.–and then deliver it according to our wishes.

Matt wondered what would happen if we were to re-define our times of waiting on the Lord according to this analogy.

Rather than focus on what we want, we would focus on Jesus and Him alone.

We would pay close attention to what He says as we seek to know the desires of His heart–what He wants us to do, how He wants us to serve Him at that particular moment in that particular place, etc.

Then we would do accordingly.

I don’t know about you, but Matt’s words stirred up something in my spirit.

You see, I had made waiting a rather passive time, when I tried to focus on Jesus’ face and just spend time with Him.

But I had not really made an attempt to know the desires of His heart.

To be very honest, I was waiting for the fulfillment of Psalm 37:4 when I spent my time waiting on the Lord. “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will grant the desires of your heart.”

There was a bit of a personal agenda in that waiting…I wanted Him to grant the desires of my heart.

Anything wrong in desiring this? I don’t think so.

However, I could see that Jesus would be so happy to have me get to know the desires of His heart first.

He gave us a hint of this in the story of Mary & Martha in Luke 10:38-42. Even though it looked as though Martha was the one playing waiter, in reality it was Mary.

No, she did not wait on Him hand and foot. But she sat at His feet and focused intently on discovering what was on His heart at the time.

You may recall that Jesus had just set his face like flint toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:51) where He was sure to face suffering and ultimately death.

He needed someone to wait(er) on Him. Mary did. And Jesus declared that she had “chosen the better part.”

How about you?  Would you also follow Mary’s example?