Waiting seems discouraging, depressing, and detrimental. I want an answer now, yesterday, and three minutes ago. I want the shortest line at the grocery store, the shortest drive from Point A to Point B, and the shortest wait time for an answer to my prayers.
But, when I rush through life, I miss the beauty of it.
I miss the opportunity that waiting in line affords to connect with another person over the price of hamburger. Or the opportunity to share a knowing smile with a mom of young children because I remember what it was like to have four kids eight years old and under.
Waiting affords us the opportunity to remember. And remembering is one thing that God wants us to do. He wants us to remember His goodness to us, His faithfulness to us, and the way He gently leads us to the next step.
It’s in the waiting that we ponder the goodness of God and how He comes through for us time and time again.
David of the Psalms knew waiting. While he waited and watched his sheep, he penned songs of adoration to God. The waiting gave Him an opportunity to study the natural world around him in order to understand the intricate faithfulness of God.
Do you look on waiting as punishment or possibility? When you’re waiting on God for something do you frantically examine yourself for remnants of sin that could possibly be blocking God’s blessing? And then take every condemning thought that comes your way and receive it as truth? Do you throw up your hands in defeat and decide to fix the situation yourself? And, in the doing, declare that God is unreliable and undependable?
Waiting on God is an opportunity for possibility. Possibility is that wonderful place of hope and wonder where dreams just might come true. Delight fills us when we place our hope in God. We get to do as the Psalmist says and taste and see that the Lord is good. But before we get to this kind of waiting, we must wrestle.
We must wrestle with our own ideas of how things should work out and then let it go. God knows best and He loves you best so we must trust His heart for us.
After we wrestle, we accept. We accept that God’s ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are higher than ours, and His vision is clearer than ours.
We risk peace when we insist on our ways as the best ways. And that, my friends, is precarious.
“Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken, but endures forever.” Psalm 125:1
Wouldn’t you love to stand stalwart like a mountain the next time one of life’s waves broadsides you?
I won’t deny that I’ve been swept off my feet when unsettling news hits me or un-dealt with issues of forgiveness knock me over. But one day, I just got tired of being shaken. I decided that I was either going to stand firm in the fullness of Christ or continue to let my circumstances dictate my belief in God’s faithfulness.
Waiting as a Gift
This is where waiting became the gift that it is.
Waiting protects my heart from panicking.
Waiting allows my heart to catch up to what my head knows to be true about God. My mind is in a constant state of renewal, and it’s my mind that reminds my heart of what it already knows to be true.
God is true, faithful, good, kind, merciful, gracious, and loving. He will not let your foot slip; He is your refuge, your rock, and your redeemer.
Somedays it might seem as though the answers to your prayers are elusive and far off. But God is near. And it’s in the waiting that we find him. He’s tenderhearted towards you, and has good thoughts about you. Turn to him and receive Him.
The Takeaway
I pray that you would be so filled up with his peace and joy that your waiting turns into a secret garden where the most wonderful fruits grow. Fruits like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control so that as you encounter life’s difficulties you have what you need to navigate them.
