HOW LONG SHOULD YOU WAIT?

[Dr. Kay]

Acts 1:13 "And when they had entered [the city], they mounted [the stairs] to the upper room where they were [indefinitely] staying....Peter and John and James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas [son] of James.
All of these with their minds in full agreement devoted themselves steadfastly to prayer, [waiting together] with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers. Amplified

The key word here is indefinitely. They went into the upper room with a mindset that said, "We aren't coming out of here until God shows up." They didn't go in there to wait ten minutes. They didn't go in there to wait two days. They didn't go in there to wait three months. No, they went in there saying, "We can't do anything until God shows up. So, God, I'm not moving until You get here. I'm staying here indefinitely!"
When we read that, we think, "Right there is our problem." Because we have so much energy and zeal in our flesh that even if we ever get around to waiting or trying to understand what it is, we only do it for short periods of time and then the energy of our flesh takes over again.
If God doesn't do something when we want Him to do it or as quick as we want Him to do it, then our bright ideas overtake us again, and we get right back in the flesh. We are constantly covering the same ground over and over again. We get a little ground, then we lose it. We gain a little ground, then we lose it.
The mindset we need to get is this: "Okay, God, I've come to the end of myself. I've tried this, and I've tried that. I've tried everything I can possibly think of for all these years. Now it has become obvious that I can't pull this off by myself. God, I need You. Only You can do it. So I'm waiting on You."
Whatever it is that we need God to do, we will have to wait. If it is seeing one of our children change, I guarantee you that we can't do it in our own strength, on our own time schedule. If it is changing the person we are married to, I can promise you that we can't do it either. If it is changing ourselves, we can't do it. If it is getting a circumstance to change, we can't make it change. If it has something to do with our business or our finances, we can't change it. Whatever it is doesn't matter because we can't make it change!
But we can wait on God, and He can do it! We might have to wait more than five minutes or ten minutes or two week. We might have to wait indefinitely. But while we wait, we can have an attitude of knowing that God is going to do it. AMEN