The English word “wait” is translated from a Hebrew word “cova” which means “to wait, to look patiently for and to bind together by twisting.” Learn about the historical and spiritual significance of this word in the last episode of the four-part series of the Empowered For Purpose podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network.
Host Bob Sawvelle says that when we wait upon the Lord, we’re binding ourselves to Him. “We are twisting ourselves around His character, around His nature and promises.” Not only that, but he says it’s helpful to remember when “we need to remind ourselves of what God has done for us in the past and what He’s done for others.”
Sawvelle says during the 1947 Hebrides Revival in Scotland, the Smith sisters were no strangers to waiting upon the Lord. They began to pray that God would send a revival and would move once again. God began sending visions to their pastor’s wife, and she talked to the Smiths about what they needed to do. Soon, the elders and the pastor joined the prayers for revival.
Sawvelle says, “After months of praying together [one of the younger elders] all of a sudden falls on his knees. One night he quotes a Scripture out of Psalm 24. He says, ‘Brothers, I perceive that our hearts really haven’t been pure and our hands clean,’ and he fell the floor and began to sob. And when that happened, they said it was like the presence of God just filled that barn.”
Sawvelle says that when evangelist Duncan Campbell got to the area, he noticed how the core group of people who were praying were “on a different spiritual plane … in a different place. Why? Because they had waited on God, and they didn’t lose hope, despite what the circumstance showed them.” Sawvelle says, “Despite the hopelessness, they knew the promises of God. And they waited on the Lord till He did something supernatural … something they couldn’t have done.”
But these historical figures are not the only ones who have waited on the Lord. To hear about the rest of God’s children who were strengthened by waiting on Him, listen to the full podcast here.
