Waiting

No one likes to wait. Still, waiting for a traffic light to turn green is different than say...waiting for an adoption. You know the traffic light will turn green eventually. The traffic light is timed, even if it malfunctions, eventually it will be fixed and your light will turn green. With adoption you do not know. It is not like you take a number, rather you take a deep breath...and you wait.

What to do in the waiting, for the waiting, with the waiting? How do we spend these seasons of life, which last longer than the time it takes check the clock twice? What do we do in the waiting rooms we would rather not be in? The clock can tell us how long you have been waiting, but not necessarily how much longer we will wait. As if knowing would make it easier.

Ultimately we wait for God, Who actually is not waiting for anything. Are there lessons to be learned in the waiting? Most certainly, but it is not as if our learning is a prerequisite to God sovereignly moving forward. Even prayer, sincere prayer, may not shorten the appointed wait. Then again, who knows? We will fill this time with something, and prayer is arguably a worthwhile choice.

What do we do in the waiting, for the waiting, with the waiting? We pray. We trust. We worship. We give. We receive. We do the thing at hand that is ours to do. We remind ourselves and others, that God is doing what we cannot.

Waiting is not passive, it is active. Even in moments of seeming inaction, it is an act of the will. It is trust in training.

“Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31 (ESV)

Sometimes I feel more weary than renewed. Sometimes I feel closer to fainting than flying. Even so, God is with me in the waiting. He is God and I am not. He has promised I will run, He has promised I will fly, and so I will, perhaps...even in the waiting.

kls