Wait for the Detectives

Have you ever been in the car and you’re waiting at a traffic light and you just really want it to turn green? Maybe you’re running late or maybe you’ve got somewhere you really can’t wait to be at.

The average person spends 6months of their life waiting at traffic lights for the light to turn green.

What about waiting in line at a shop or a theme park or somewhere. Do you get bored waiting in line? The average person also spends 6 months waiting in lines/queues

And then there’s being on hold on the phone – but you kids would probably be too young to worry about that. But the adults might be interested to know that on average, they will spend 45 days of their life on hold on the phone.

How do you feel about having to wait?

Have you ever had to wait a long time for something that you were really looking forward to?

Sometimes we have to wait a long time for things. Christmas (130 days to go!), birthdays – a whole year! It can feel like a long time to wait.

Who likes having to wait? Most of us hate having to wait.

Sometimes waiting is really really hard – like when you’re sick and waiting to get better. Or waiting for someone you love to get better. Sometimes you find yourself waiting for God to answer your prayers

In the Bible, there are a lot of people who do a lot of waiting. I wonder if you can think of some?

Noah waited in the Ark for more than a year before the floodwaters dried up

Abraham waited until he was 100 years old before he had the baby boy that God promised him

The Israelites waited 40 years in the wilderness before they could enter the promised land

They had to wait 70 years before they could go home from Babylon

The world waited for somewhere around 4000 years for baby Jesus to be born – the promised Messiah and saviour

There are lots of stories of waiting

And that’s ok because there are lots of promises about waiting too and today I want to look at a couple of those promises.

Psalm 27:14 (NKJV)

Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!

Isaiah 40:31 (NKJV)

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.

Wings like eagles – soaring about the chaos below, free from any troubles, strong, not weary

Who is this promise for? Those who wait on the Lord

CALLING ALL DETECTIVES

But here’s where we pull out our detective hats because there’s more than meets the eye here.

The Bible is an amazing book full of hidden treasures and the more you dig, the more treasure you find. I love, really LOVE, digging into God’s Word. And one of the things that I find exciting is learning about the original languages the Bible was written in. Did you know that the Bible was originally written in three different languages? – (guess what they are) Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek

Now words are interesting things and sometimes you get a word that has lots of meaning in one of those languages and when you try to put it into English you only get part of the meaning. Now don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with an English translation of the Bible – it is God’s word and it speaks to us in any language! But sometimes it’s a bit of fun to go digging and find out what the original words mean. So who wants to be a detective with me? (give out hats)

CLUE 1

Hand out detective hats. Get kids to open box 1

Ok, this word wait is the Hebrew word qavah (קָוָה) and it most likely comes from the idea of twisting cords or fibres together to make a rope. That’s a bit interesting. What does twisting a rope have to do with waiting? Yes, it requires a bit of patience but I think there might be more to this one detective. Let’s keep digging.

CLUE 2

Word pairs. In the Bible some words appear often with another related word. We can see this is the theme verse today. Isaiah 40 speaks about not growing faint or weary. “Faint” and “weary” are a word pair that often occur together and it shows us that the meaning of the words is connected. So, let’s check out the word pairs on this one.

Hand out detective hats. Get kids to open Clue box 2

Occurs in word pairs with words meaning to see or look, [רָאָה (Job 3:9), נָבַט (Job 6:19), שָׁאַף (Job 7:2)], to hope or trust [יָחַל (Ps 130:5, Isa 51:5), תּוֹחֶלֶת (Ps 39:7)], to seek [בָּקַשׁ (Ps 69:6), דָּרַשׁ (Lam 3:25), to wait [חָכָה (Isa 8:17)] and to praise or confess [יָדָה (Ps 52:9)].

Words that pair with קָוָה ‘wait’

Look

Hope

Trust

Seek

Praise

CLUE 3

Opposites. Sometimes you can tell a bit about what something means by knowing what it doesn’t mean. If I ask you what the opposite of hot is you would say (cold). The opposite of sad is (happy). So what is the opposite of waiting?

Hand out detective hats. Get kids to open 3rd box

Psalm 37:9 (NKJV)

For evildoers shall be cut off; But those who wait on the Lord, They shall inherit the earth.

The evildoers are the opposite of those who wait.

That’s a bit interesting don’t you think detectives?

SOLVING THE PUZZLE

Summing up

So we have 3 clues to what it means to WAIT on the Lord.

Firstly, it comes from the idea of twisting fibers together to make a rope.

Secondly, it is related to words like ‘look’ ‘hope’ ‘trust’ ‘seek’ ‘praise’

and finally those that wait on the Lord are the opposite of those who do evil

What picture does this paint for us? What does it all mean?

Well let’s start with our first clue.

Get kids to come up front and make cords.

When you twist fibers together what happens to them? They get closer and closer together. They support each other and become stronger from being together. When we come closer to God in those waiting times, when we bind ourselves to Him, we lean on His strength to get us through. When we spend time with God and lean on Him we learn to trust Him and we know that He loves us so we begin to look forward to the future with God - we HOPE. We learn to look to Him for our needs instead of looking to other things to fulfil our needs. So we LOOK to Him and SEEK Him. As we see what He does in our lives we PRAISE Him. So can you see how the first clue connects with the second clue to give us a deeper, fuller picture of what it means to WAIT on God? It doesn’t mean we are just sitting down doing nothing and impatiently waiting for God to do something. It is so much more amazing and more beautiful.

And what about that final clue? Well we saw that those who WAIT on God are the opposite of those who do evil. Waiting on God is a feature of someone who follows God and does what is right and good. But when we understanding that waiting is leaning on God, trusting Him and binding ourselves closer and closer to Him that starts to all make sense.

So, when you find yourself waiting for something, draw closer to God. Like that rope twisting tighter together, spend more and more time with God and draw closer and closer to Him and you will find yourself experiencing Hope and Trust and soaring like an eagle of the difficulties in your life.