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Baker Publishing Group - David Timms

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72 pages

English

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In a world that waits for nothing, Sacred Waiting helps readers learn to wait on God. David Timms challenges believers to be attentive to God as were the faithful from Noah to David, from Paul to John--and all the saints in between. He demonstrates that their best moments arose from God's timing, not their own. In the process he reveals deep, transforming truths for those who want to go deeper into their relationship with God. Grounded in the stories of Scripture and everyday illustrations, Sacred Waiting explores a vital yet often neglected or misunderstood spiritual discipline.

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Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 septembre 2009
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441204721
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0432€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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S ACRED W AITING
DAVID TIMMS
SACRED WAITING
Waiting on God in a World That Waits for Nothing
Sacred Waiting Copyright 2009 David Timms
Cover design by Dan Pitts
All emphasis in Scripture is the author s.
Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations identified KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations identified The Message are from The Message. Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
Scripture quotations identified NASB are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by International Bible Society. Used by permission. ( www.Lockman.org )
Scripture quotations identified NLT are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Published by Bethany House Publishers 11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Timms, David. Sacred waiting : waiting on God in a world that waits for nothing / David Timms p. cm. Summary: Examines waiting on God as an aspect of spiritual formation, showing that we learn patience, obedience, and trust through waiting. Includes biblical examples of waiting as well as illustrations from the church calendar -Provided by publisher. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-7642-0678-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Spiritual life-Christianity. 2. Patience-Religious aspects-Christianity. 3. Trust in God-Christianity. I. Title.
BV4647.P3T56 2009
248.4 6-dc22
2009025131
To my wife, Kim- my beloved partner in sacred waiting
A BOUT THE A UTHOR
D AVID T IMMS
David Timms teaches New Testament and Theology and serves as chair of the Graduate Ministry Department at Hope International University in Fullerton, California. Australian by birth, David has been a church planter, pastor, and trainer of pastors for twenty-five years. He publishes an e-zine, In Hope , that shares his reflections on Christian leadership and spiritual formation. He and his wife, Kim, have three sons and live in Fullerton, California.
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
W riting a book is much like building a house. It takes a team. On a building site, some folks dig trenches and pour foundations that will never be seen, others come along later and put in wall studs and wiring that will be hidden behind Sheetrock, and at the end a few folks do the painting that gives the project its final look. In many ways I m just the painter.
This book reflects the wisdom, insights, and input of many people-more than I can mention, but whose investment in my life or whose passing comments have helped build the house. That team includes people from the past who invested in digging the foundations (mentoring and nurturing me)-people like John and Kae Thornhill, John and Helen York, and my parents, John and Pam Timms.
The team also includes more recent tradespeople assembled by the Master Builder. Kyle Duncan at Bethany House has shown great faith in this project, while Ellen Chalifoux, my editor, did much of the cutting and finishing work. My dear friends Scott and Stephanie Rosner devoted many hours to reading a draft manuscript and offering much needed guidance, and the administration at Hope International University encouraged me to keep writing. My sincerest and deepest thanks to each of you.
I also want to acknowledge the online In Hope community- hundreds of fellow workers for the Kingdom who graciously receive my regular email reflections. Your feedback (and occasional pushback) has shaped me-and this book-in many subtle ways.
A special thanks also to my three sons-Matthew, Caleb, and Joel. You guys inspire me and keep my feet on the ground at the same time. And to Kim, who for two and a half decades of marriage has patiently and lovingly invested in me. You amaze me with your love, your attentiveness, and your faith.
None of this happens, of course, without the Architect and Master Builder, our Father. All honor to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to whom belong the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.
C ONTENTS
Introduction
1. Noah: Wait and Endure
2. Abraham: Wait and Trust
3. Moses: Wait and Learn
4. David: Wait and Worship
5. Jesus: Wait and Obey
Transition
6. The Advent Wait
7. The Lenten Wait
8. The Easter Wait
9. The Pentecost Wait
10. The Kingdom Wait
Postscript
Endnotes
I NTRODUCTION
Eternal God, who heals my hurts and restores my soul, teach me to wait on you not for what I might receive but for what I might give. Still my hurried heart to hear you this day. Amen.
W e live in a world that waits for nothing. Abstinence programs have limited appeal. Young couples regularly overextend themselves. Families live beyond their means. We have, for the most part, shaken off restraint and embraced a stunning degree of materialism, consumerism, and hedonism. Comfort and pleasure have become the supreme goals of life. And we pursue it with credit and debt.
In 2006, Americans held about 984 million Visa and Master-card accounts-three for every man, woman, and child in the country-and by the end of 2008, the total consumer debt in the United States had reached 2.56 trillion . 1 If we take that staggering figure and spread it across the total population, it means that personal household debt at that time amounted to about 8,400 for every individual. And that excludes any home mortgage debt.
Clever advertising fuels the credit craze by insisting that we need not wait for what we want. In fact, we can have it now and pay for it later-much later, in some instances.
In past generations, when credit was not so readily available, eating out, getting gasoline, buying clothes, making small home improvements, and a dozen other regular expenses were all paid for with cash, or folks waited. Our culture has long since wearied of waiting.
The pace of life that we embrace means that every wait represents a waste of our time. So we grumble when the computer takes two minutes to boot up. We eat a lot of fast food. We live attached to our cell phones or BlackBerrys so we can quickly pick up every call, text message, or email-even while on vacation. We view the yellow traffic light as an invitation to put the pedal to the metal rather than brake. Then we grow impatient if the traffic lights remain red for long. Our irritation level rises exponentially in checkout lines, train stations, restaurants, and doctors offices- not to mention the dreaded Department of Motor Vehicles. None of us likes to wait. There s simply too much to do!
THE PACE OF LIFE
Until the eighteenth century, the pace of life rarely exceeded the walking pace of a horse. People traveled short distances at relatively slow speeds. Or if they went far, they took a long time to do so. Twenty miles was considered a solid day s ride. But with the Industrial Revolution all of that changed. Steam-powered ships, railways, and mass-produced motor vehicles began to accelerate the pace.
In more recent times, that pace has increased even further. In the 1970s, we communicated with letters that we could send quickly-even overnight-by various mail carriers. In the 1980s, we enjoyed faster communication through fax machines. In the 1990s, the rise of email let us send out more messages than ever before, as long as we had access to a computer. In the 2000s, we ve turned to text messaging with its own shorthand-LOL, BFF, CU-that communicates in ultra-short messages rather than expressive pages. Facebook and Twitter keep our friends and subscribers constantly aware of what s happening with us. Communication, which should involve deeper knowledge of each other, has diminished to quick and usually superficial levels.
Recently one of my sons managed to exchange 3,000 text messages in one of his first months with a cell phone. When I mentioned this to some friends, they shared that their daughter had racked up 13,000 text messages in the same period-433 text messages every day of the month; an average of one message about every two minutes of every waking hour for a month. Quick, brief, and constant communication has dramatically changed the number of demands we have to juggle in any given day.
As the speed of our lives increases, the quality of our relationships usually decreases.
An interesting study carried out in the early 1990s demonstrated that the speed at which pedestrians walk provides a reliable measure of the pace of life in a city, and that people in fast-moving cities are less likely to help others, and have higher rates of coronary heart disease. Research teams discovered that the pace of life rose 10 percent over a decade in many cities. The researchers simply measured the time it took for people, unaware that they were being studied, to walk sixty feet. Interestingly, Singapore emerged as the fastest city in the world by this measurement, with the average pedestrian covering sixty feet in a zippy 10.55 seconds. 2
All of this highlights the exponential increase in our pace of life, something we hardly need to be told. And the impact on our relationships and quality of life is proving devastating. A fundamental principle holds true