Pastor Ryan Gaffney

They will tell you to wait.

And wait, and wait.

If you grow up in the Christian church you will no doubt be told over and over again that you are not ready for things, that you should practice more discernment, and that it is a holy and laudable thing to “wait upon the lord” for the “appropriate time” to so any manner of things, and that in the mean time you need to simply be a religious consumer, and an attendee at whatever vague program they are currently looking for attendees for,

It is a lie.

It’s a lie from the pit of hell and it results in thousands if not millions of Christians who outta be out changing the world, instead sitting around trying to practice a nonexistant spiritual discipline.

That word, in Isaiah 40:31, the one that was translated “wait upon the LORD? It doesn’t mean that.

The original Hebrew word is קָוָה which means to be strong, to be tense, to be ready. Enduring, awaiting. The image is of a warrior with his sword drawn, because he is waiting for the moment to act within the next couple seconds.

It is the exact polar opposite of someone waiting around doing nothing, which is what the image conjures today. But in the early 1600s when the KJV was written, that’s what “wait” meant in English. It’s where we get the idea of a “waiter” as someone who serves. We are to “wait on the LORD” meaning serve him. A waiter is not someone who is idle. A waiter is someone who is standing ready to help and to serve, anticipating your needs, looking for anything they might be able to bring you.

But over time we grew to like the wrong meaning of that verse (it served the selfish needs of religious leaders) and now when new translations come out, they tend to keep that English word the same, even though the language has moved on and it doesn’t mean the same thing anymore.

Also, Jesus wasn’t a carpenter in the sense we know carpenters today. he was a carpenter in the 1600s sense. A builder.