When we give time to waiting on the Lord, our spiritual capacity increases. It’s as though we’re stretched on the inside so that we can receive more of God.
If we had no other example, as followers of Jesus we should make times of quiet, waiting prayer a priority in our lives simply because our Savior did. He made silence and solitude before God His constant companion. No matter what great demands He faced or what situations were thrown at Him, His public ministry was always punctuated by times of private withdrawal.

Jesus practiced personally what He taught His disciples: Go into your [most] private room, and, closing the door, pray to your Father, Who is in secret” (Matthew 6:6 Amp.). As a result, verses like these abound:

...in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. (Mark 1:35)

And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray.
(Mark 6:46)

And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. (Luke 6:12)

It’s no wonder that on the eve of Jesus’ greatest challenge, when the prospect of the cross loomed before Him, He retreated to Gethsemane to spend time alone with God. He knew from years of experience that only through intimate fellowship with His Father could He receive the divine strength to complete His mission. He knew that as He watched and prayed, He would be infused with the spiritual power needed to make Him equal to the task.

This is something we, as disciples, must come to understand as He did. When we give time to waiting on the Lord, our spiritual capacity increases. It’s as though we’re stretched on the inside so that we can receive more of God. We’re equipped in His presence to do what He’s called us to do.

Spiritual Spaces Filled With Fire
Although it may sound like a strange comparison, I see quiet times of fellowship with God much like punctuation marks on a printed page. They are the commas and semicolons that give meaning to the text of our lives. They are the divine pauses during which God gives us direction.
They are the spiritual spaces that bring balance and structure to what would otherwise be little more than a string of nonsensical events, a blur of noise and hurry.

Unlike the spaces on a piece of paper, however, the spiritual spaces where we meet with God aren’t empty. They’re filled with Himself. They burn with His presence—a presence that changes us as surely as natural fire changes the chemical composition of wood.

Times of waiting in the light and heat of God affect us in much the same way Isaiah was affected by his visit to the throne room of God. When he saw the fiery glory there, he cried out, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6:5).

In the light of God’s presence, Isaiah recognized his imperfection. He saw that in himself he was inadequate to be a mouthpiece for the Lord. Yet for Isaiah—as for us—the answer to his imperfection came through the same fire and glory that revealed it. It came, Isaiah says, when one of the seraphims, “having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar … laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged” (Isaiah 6:4–5).

Think of it! The fire that cleansed Isaiah’s lips is the same fire that burned in the disciples’ hearts on the road to Emmaus. It’s the same fire that burns in the hearts of believers today as they wait on the Master in the secret place. It’s the fire that energizes and enables the body of Christ to disperse the very love and power and Gospel of God to a sin-darkened world.

Every one of us desperately needs that fire. Yet many believers these days are trying to struggle along without it.

Sometimes when I’m in the spirit I can hear their cries of frustration. “How do I fulfill my God-ordained mission?” they ask. “How do I reach the destination He has planned for me? I can see what I’m supposed to do but there’s a wide gulf that separates me from it, and I don’t know how to cross that gulf.”

Let me tell you, dear friend and pray-er, as we wait upon God, He’ll build a bridge that will take us to the other side. He’ll give us eagle’s wings to soar with Him, and eagle’s eyes to see where He wants us to go. He will meet us on the Emmaus road. So become a more frequent traveler there, won’t you? Tread on it often until it becomes a wide thoroughfare, easily found. Let the silent presence of God punctuate your life more and more with direction, balance, and structure.