Lessons from the Saints: Adam Waits

Passage: Genesis 2: 15-24

notes:
Fact: Waiting is part of the Christian life
we see this idea constantly through Scripture, authors talk about waiting on God, learning to wait, and be eager for the things they wait for. As Christians it is in our nature especially to wait because we are people who wait for Christ to return (as shown in the last two verses listed below), all of our hope hinges on that!
Psalm 27:14, 37:7; Romans 2:7; 1 Thessalonians 1:10 and James 5:7-8.

When waiting remember:

• God knows what you want and what is best for you
  

God recognizes that Adam being alone is not a good thing and plans to give him a partner, just not yet...

1. God wants you to pray and tell Him about what you want, desire, and need.
2. prayer helps you to release those desires to God.
3. see Philippians 4:6,7

As an example of learning to pray and release desires to God I sited a prayer I learned for Martin Luther on how to pray as a single man desiring someday to be married. A year or so ago it was a help and instruction for me in my life and I used it to encourage many other guys at my school. The prayer goes as follows:
"Dear Lord God, if it be thy divine will that I continue to live without a wife, help me to do so. If not, bestow upon me a pious girl with whom I can spend all of my days, whom I hold dear, and who loves me. Amen."
The point of giving this example is to show how prayer can release concerns and desires to God, to take care of in His time, releasing us from concern or worry about those things any longer... it is now in His hands.

• Waiting produces Godly character and appreciation for what we have

see Galatians 5:22 and 1 Corinthians 13:4
Instead of immediately giving Adam a wife the moment He recognized the need God gave Adam an assignment to name all the animals. This showed Adam (it might have even rubbed it in his face) that he was the only one without a partner, producing in him a desire for a partner. When that desire is met he would appreciate it all the more.

• There is work to be done

see Ecclesiastes 9:10
What if Adam, so consumed with his longing for a partner, decided to not name the animals in protest? There would be anarchy! All kinds of nameless animals causing havoc! How could I tell people I am afraid of a shark if there was no name for it, how could I describe that fear?
There is work for us to do while we wait, we cannot sit by and wait, there are things today that the Lord has given us to accomplish, people to love, and truth to pursue. We cannot be so consumed by what we lack that we are stopped from doing what needs done today.