II Chronicles 20:12

They shall not be ashamed that wait for me.” Such is the veritable record of the living God—a record made good in the experience of all those who have been enabled, through grace, to exercise a living faith. We must remember how much is involved in these three words— “wait for me.” The waiting must be a real thing. It will not do to say we are waiting on God, when in reality, our eye is askance upon some human prop. We must absolutely be “shut up” to God. We must be brought to the end of self and to the bottom of circumstance, in order fully to prove what God’s resources are. “My soul, wait thou only upon God” (Psalm 62:5 KJV).

Thus it was with Jehoshaphat, in that scene recorded in 2 Chronicles 20. He was wholly wrecked upon God; it was either God or nothing. “We have no power” (v. 12). But what then? “Our eyes are on you” (ibid.). This was enough. Jehoshaphat was in the very best attitude and condition to prove what God was. To have been possessed of creature strength or creature wisdom would only have proved a hindrance to him in leaning exclusively upon the arm and the counsel of the Almighty God.

Blessed are the meek.

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill.—A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.

As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even for ever.

Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us.

An Israeli named Uzzah lost his life because he “reached out and took hold of the ark of God” (2 Samuel 6:6). He placed his hands on it with the best of intentions—to steady it, “because the oxen stumbled” (2 Samuel 6:6)—but nevertheless, he had overstepped his bounds by touching the Lord’s work, and “therefore God struck him down” (2 Samuel 6:7). Living a life of faith often requires us to leave things alone.

If we have completely entrusted something to God, we must keep our hands off it. He can guard it better than we can, and He does not need our help. “Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes” (Psalm 37:7).