Why Should I Wait on God?

2 Kings 7:2 – The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?” “You will see it with your own eyes,” answered Elisha, “but you will not eat any of it!” NIV

Have you ever been in a situation that looked impossible no matter how you looked at it? Well, I can assure you that you are not the only one. It happened again and again in the Bible! I want to look at a situation that was absolutely impossible in the natural, then God!!!

In chapter 6, of 2 Kings, there is a famine in Samaria. The king of Syria, Ben-hadad, had encamped around the city to lay siege against it. The purpose of the siege was to cut off trade and communication in order to bring the city into captivity. The Syrians surrounded the city of Samaria, not allowing anyone to enter it and prohibiting anyone from leaving it. The siege lasted so long that a great famine was in the land.

Things got pretty bad and people began to pay outrageous prices for whatever they could find to eat. At one point, two women agreed to kill their children and eat them; however, after they ate the first child, the second woman hid her child! Things were awful!

Well, when the king heard about the women boiling that child, he got angry and promised that he would have Elisha’s head on a platter. So he sends an executioner to Elisha and follows him to the door!

The king said, “This disaster is from the Lord. Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”

2 Kings 6:33 NIV

The king is angry! He tells Elisha that he has been waiting on God for assistance but God isn’t coming through for him because he realizes that God is the one who sent the trouble to his city! In his anger, he yells that he’s tired of waiting on God and doesn’t know why he should be waiting!

Have you been there? Have you felt like you didn’t know why you should be waiting on God when you believe He is the One responsible for your situation anyway? Have you ever felt like it is His fault that you are struggling with your finances? Or it’s His fault that you are single? Maybe you are stuck in a situation that you hate, but you decided to trust Him in it, but things are getting worst? It’s really tough to trust God when things are going from bad to worst and you think He is responsible for your situation.

Then Elisha has a word for the king from the Lord!

“Hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Lord says: About this time tomorrow, a seah of the finest flour will sell for a shekel and two seahs of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.”

2 Kings 7:1 NIV

Imagine this scene! The king was angry with God, and by proxy, he was angry with Elisha! Elisha wasn’t moved by the king’s anger! He was not afraid of losing his head! He simply shared that things were about to change! Before the king could respond, his officer responded!

The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, “Look, even if the Lord should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?” “You will see it with your own eyes,” answered Elisha, “but you will not eat any of it!”

2 Kings 7:2 NIV

In his arrogance, he mocked what Elisha prophesied. He said that even if God opened the windows of heaven, it couldn’t happen! He held God in contempt, and dismissed Him as being incapable of turning things around so quickly!

Although the king was tired of waiting, God’s answer was around the corner! When we are at the point of not being able to take it anymore, God isn’t at that point! When things look unbelievably out of control, He is still in control! When things look utterly impossible, with Him they are still very much possible! That’s why the king shouldn’t have given up on God! That’s why we can’t afford to give up on God! He is able to do just what He said He would do!

The very next day, outside the city walls, four lepers were starving.

Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’—the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.”

2 Kings 7:3-4

These men didn’t hear the word of the Lord spoken to the king by Elisha. But as they were sitting around contemplating their fate, they came to the conclusion that if they were going to die, at least they would die trying to save themselves. When they got to the camp, no one was there! Everything had been abandoned and there was plenty of food and other things just waiting to be taken. Here’s what happened:

For the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!” So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives.

2 Kings 7:6-7 NIV

Isn’t that crazy? It makes no sense at all! If you’re going to run away wouldn’t you at least take your horses to get away faster? How in the world did they hear so much ruckus that they ran away without taking anything with them? Well, when God starts to move, He can cause people to do things that make absolutely no sense! And you can get the benefit of seeing Him move on your behalf! Just like that! He can cause a bad situation to change into a blessing! He can move people out of your way! He can make the impossible in your situation, possible! He can do it!

At first, the lepers were having a great time eating, drinking, and being merry. They even started taking some of the goods and burying them for safekeeping. But finally, they realized that they had to tell the king so that the people could also benefit from what God had done.

But the king didn’t believe it. He thought it was a trick. Fortunately for the people of Samaria, someone was able to convince the king to send out a group to investigate the situation. When they came back and reported the good news, the people went wild!

Now the king had put the officer on whose arm he leaned in charge of the gate, and the people trampled him in the gateway, and he died, just as the man of God had foretold when the king came down to his house.

2 Kings 7:17 NIV

Trampled at the gateway by the people who were rushing to gain access to all of that cheap food. The food he said God couldn’t provide if He opened the windows of heavens! He never got to experience any of it! Just as Elisha had said!

God understands that things from our point of view can look impossible. He understands that we struggle with trusting Him. However, arrogance and derision will not endear you to Him or cause Him to move on your behalf! Faith moves God! Elisha absolutely believed that God would do what He said that He would do! And God did it! “Why should you wait on God?” You should wait on Him because He is faithful! Wonderful Jesus!