CAN YOU WAIT?
NOBODY LIKES TO WAIT, I am one of those many who is terribly impatient and find it difficult to wait in uncertainty. David H Roper says “We don’t like to wait. We dislike the long lines at super-market checkout counters, and the traffic jams downtown and around shopping malls. We hate to wait at the bank or at a restaurant and then there are the harder waits: a childless couple waiting for a child; a single person waiting for marriage; an addict waiting for deliverance; a spouse waiting for a kind and gentle word; a worried patient waiting for a diagnosis from a doctor”.
“In a land of honking horns, chirping cell phones and drive-through attention spans, there isn’t time to be patient. Experts say that consumerism, materialism, self-absorption are each an ingredient in a recipe for perpetual impatience, turning humans into hamsters racing in their wheels, getting nowhere fast” says Sandi Dolbee. Waiting is always a frustrating experience, I don’t know of anybody who really enjoys waiting. Noah had to wait many years of mocking before he saw the first drop of water, Abraham had to wait many painful years before he saw the promised son, Israelites had to wait forty years before they entered the promised land, Joseph had to wait several years of uncertainty in a foreign land before his dream became a reality. Waiting on God is the ability to endure discomfort without complaint, to be calm through the storm.
Waiting is always a frustrating experience… Noah had to wait many years of mocking before he saw the first drop of water…Waiting on God is the ability to endure discomfort without complaint, to be calm through the storm.
“Patience is a Christian virtue because it is intimately tied to our faith itself. We continue in the face of heartache and suffering because we believe that our rescuer is coming. We put up with each other’s failures because we know that everything will finally be resolved” says Ron Julian. But as a Christian I have to admit that on several occasions I struggled to discern whether I was waiting on the Lord or missing out on God given opportunities. Most of the times waiting patiently results into something more beautiful or better, but I also have to admit that there are occasions when my waiting did not bring the kind of results I expected.
One of the things that make trusting in God or patiently waiting on him difficult is our tendency to often see things only from our limited perspective. What makes it worse is that waiting on God always involves faith that demands a complete surrender of one’s control on life.
James R Spiegel makes this insightful comment on waiting on God “Patience with God is a challenge, because sometimes it’s not at all clear whether it is God we’re waiting for or whether we should even wait on him at all. The unemployed person may wonder, “Have I waited too long rather than taking more action?” The person desiring a spouse might second-guess herself, “Have I taken the right social steps?” And the childless couple might wonder, “Should we pursue clinical help in order to conceive?” Sometimes it’s simply unclear whether God wants us to wait or take another course of action….and the most difficult of all, there’s no guarantee that God will, indeed, act to satisfy our desires…Although he has told us he will meet all our needs, he hasn’t guaranteed that all of our desires, even significant ones, will be satisfied.”
One of the things that make trusting in God or patiently waiting on him difficult is our tendency to often see things only from our limited perspective. What makes it worse is that waiting on God always involves faith that demands a complete surrender of one’s control on life. No wonder the Bible says “the righteous shall live by faith”, because no matter how much we know and how much we control, there are still many things or aspects that are fully out of our control. A life of faith is not just a better option; it is the only way to live a Christian life. Uncertainties are designed not to cause despair but to drive us closer to God. Thus our ability to wait on God is only as strong as our ability to overcome the desire to control every aspect of our lives. I am not advocating a life that is passive and does not try anything, I am just cautioning of the danger on the other extreme where we go crazy in trying to control too many things as if we run the show of our lives.
In life what we wait for is far less important than what God is doing in us while we wait on Him. The Psalmist says in Is 40:31: . “But those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. They will fly high on wings as eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint”. God did not promise that at the end of the wait God will fulfill all our desires or longings, but he assured us two things: his presence during the storms and His strength to fly and not faint. Waiting sometimes feels like torture, but waiting on the Lord is not that bad because we are intentionally choosing to put our complete trust in the Lord while he is building character within us. Moses was a different person after forty years of waiting; Joseph was a different person after thirteen years of misunderstanding and mistreatment. Saul was flaming hot to go out to preach the gospel right after his dramatic encounter with Jesus, but God forced him to travel to Arabia (Gal 1:17), after three long years of solitude Paul was a different man. It is not what we get at the end of the wait that really matters; it is what we become because of the wait that truly matters. It is what God builds in us while we wait on him that makes us eagles that soar high through the storms of life.
It is not what we get at the end of the wait that really matters; it is what we become because of the wait that truly matters. It is what God builds in us while we wait on him that makes us eagles that soar high through the storms of life.
– – Author: Rev. Francis Burgula – –
