“First, please ask what the LORD’s will is.” – 1 Kings 22.5, CSB
This was the request King Jehoshaphat made of King Ahab. Ahab wanted to go to war with Aram to regain Ramoth-Gilead (1 Kings 22.3). So, he requested Jehoshaphat’s support and alliance. Jehoshaphat replied, “I am as you are, my people as your people, my horses as your horses” (1 Kings 22.4, CSB). But Jehoshaphat had one request before he would move forward with Ahab.
“First, please ask what the LORD’s will is” (1 Kings 22.5, CSB).
First. Before anything else. The priority. The most important thing to Jehoshaphat was to know what God’s will was. He wanted to follow the Lord instead of asking God to follow him.
How much of our walks with the Lord are we moving ahead of the Lord instead of learning to wait on him? How much of our time and energy is spent doing things for the Lord instead of learning to do things with the Lord? Doing things for the Lord requires action, not necessarily waiting. However, doing things with the Lord will require me to first seek him and then learn to wait on him until he gives a clear answer and then move in obedience to his leading. I can be busy doing things for the Lord only later to realize what I was doing for the Lord had nothing to do with what the Lord wanted.
In years past, I could zealously say a quick prayer for “guidance” that would result in not hearing anything specific, which I could then take to mean that my idea must have been the will of God. Oftentimes, the motivation of my heart has been, “Lord, please bless what I am about to do.” That’s not necessarily a bad prayer to pray if, and only if, I’m doing what God has said. However, if I speed ahead of God with a cool new idea without first seeking him, I expect God to bless my efforts while not wanting to walk with him in his will. Instead of jumping to conclusions about what the will of God is because it’s an idea that can be dressed up in a fancy box of faith with ribbons and wrappings of passion and zeal, we should approach him first with empty hands and a humble heart of inquiry and desire to know what he wants and then to do his will when he makes it clear.
“First, please ask what the LORD’s will is.” That should be the condition of our hearts. We should first want to know what God’s will is instead of wanting what we want to be the will of God. And one may ask, “But what if God doesn’t answer me when I ask him?” Then maybe his silence is his call to wait. And while fear may try to strangle our souls while we are waiting, the Lord tells us it is good to wait for him.
The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the person who seeks him. It is good to wait quietly for salvation from the LORD. – Lamentations 3.25-26, CSB
However, the one requirement of waiting on the Lord, regardless of how things look, is trust. It all comes down to that.
In Lamentations 3, the concept of hope is within the Hebrew word for “wait.” And it’s not a hope like we think of today when we use that word, like a fifty-fifty shot, or an uncertain “hoping for the best.” Instead, it means to “look forward with confidence to that which is good and beneficial, often with a focus of anticipation in a future event.”* It’s to know without a doubt that God will come through. Even when he “takes his time” to convey his will to us, we hope and wait for him to make known his will because we trust him.
While I have not mastered slowing down and waiting on the Lord, I’m thankful that he has done his great work to help me improve. I’m finding myself first asking God, more often than not, what he wants. I find myself looking at life more than ever through the filter of Scripture, prayer, and godly counsel to know God’s will instead of jumping to a self-motivated, often incorrect, conclusion that every good idea I have, even if I call it “ministry,” must be the will of God. But the part that I’m intentionally working on is finding joy in waiting on God to make clear what he wants and only then to obey. When to move. When to wait. When to speak. When to remain quiet. The list goes on and on. But it’s really not a list to get through, as if God only wants me to check boxes off of his never-ending task list. Instead, It’s a humble and beautiful walk with God as he teaches me more about himself. And as he increases my understanding of who he is, my faith in him grows. And as my faith in him grows, my soul learns to wait on him joyfully. And all of this starts with this one request that flows from a humble condition of my heart before the Lord:
“First, please ask what the Lord’s will is.”
* Swanson, James. Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament), Electronic ed., Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997.
Brian J Holland 
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