God waits too.

Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you,

and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.

For the LORD is a God of justice;

blessed are all those who wait for him.

Isaiah 30:18

God waits too. He waits for people to repent. He works His discipline on His children so that they may change, repent, come to see His ways, and return from times of straying to be changed by a new appreciation of His grace. That is why the word “therefore” begins this verse. We have to go back in the context to see just why God is “waiting to be gracious”.

If we go back just a few verses to Isaiah 30:15 we see a wonderful offer of rest made by God to His people. He wanted them to return and rest in Him for salvation. He asked them to quietly trust Him for strength even as His judgment was beginning to bring difficulties to them. But Israel refused this gracious offer: “But you were unwilling.”

Instead of returning to the Lord in repentance, God’s people fled from God (Isaiah 30:16a). A reverse exodus occurred in which many of them tried to flee to Egypt (Isaiah 30:17a). But pursuing enemies still swiftly caught them (Isaiah 30:16b). Those left in Jerusalem were few and the city was decimated by the refusal of God’s people to return to God in His just discipline of them (Isaiah 30:17b).

So God waited for them. He would wait out the entire seventy year exile for them to again return to Him. During this time God would show His power, sustaining the Jews even in far-off Babylon. He wanted to be gracious, and again He would be. He showed them mercy even as His discipline worked to change their hearts. His justice prevailed as He waited, and as they learned to wait on God to restore a people upon whom God waited as well. This mutual waiting worked God’s will for a new generation.

So in my waiting I will let the Word of God and the Spirit of God search my heart. I am sure I need to change. I am sure God is working a new thing in me in this season of change. God is certainly patient with me as I grow, sometimes even as I have resisted that this current season is definitely His work in me. I come to believe that I must rest in Him as I wait, and as He waits. I will wait on the God Who graciously, mercifully, and mightily works to build a better work in me in this waiting, It is a waiting that both God and I must do.