The Gift of Holy Waiting
Does anyone really like waiting? Oh, I know all the values of waiting. Waiting develops patience and character and many other virtues, but even with that, if given the choice, would we really prefer waiting? We can think of some benefits to waiting and most of us can recall things and events that once they happened, we would admit were worth the wait. Husbands, don't mess up and fail to tell your wife that marrying her was worth the wait, for instance! And parents have stories of the joys through the journey of nine months waiting for their precious child to be born. Some may have a memory of waiting for an exotic trip or saving for a certain car or house that was worthy of the wait. But if we are talking about most other things, we don't want to stand in line or sit in the waiting room, or worse, wait for the doctor to call about the test results. Waiting would not appear in our top ten things to do.
For centuries, Christians around the world have celebrated advent. Some Christians in the East start the advent season in mid-November but Western Christians (who have more issues with waiting, by the way) use the four Sundays before Christmas Eve to celebrate advent. Advent is a time of reflection, preparation, and waiting for the celebration of the birth of our Savior. Most of us become a bit more reflective as we age, so taking time to reflect on the meaning of the coming of Christ can be rewarding.
But I will confess that sometimes getting older just means you have more responsibility and more urgency to get stuff finished. And as leaders, the weight of our decisions and the needs of those we lead have time constraints. For instance, no one will wait an extra day for their paycheck. If it is pay day, the boss better have the payroll funded. We all have a limit to our waiting it seems.
The Apostle Paul gives us an amazing example of the value of waiting. He spent the last few years of his life in prison waiting for his trial in Rome. If you read Acts carefully, I believe all total Paul may have spent between five and a half to six years in various times and places of waiting in prison, with his last and longest wait at the end of his life. But we don't read about a grumpy apostle as he waits. We read about a bold and joyful man taking full advantage of his restrictions and leveraging the time to write, teach, witness, encourage, and love those who came to see him and those he could reach through messages he sent to local churches. Waiting did not stop Paul's work nor damage his effectiveness.
God doesn't appear to have an issue with waiting either. Paul says in Romans that at just the right time, and in Galatians he says in the fullness of time, God sent Jesus. It was many centuries of waiting from the promise to Abraham to the birth of a Savior. And we are in more than 2000 years of waiting for his second coming. One of the lessons we struggle to accept is that God's timing is always right. You and I have many days where we will argue that point with each other and frankly, should argue it with God, if we are honest with him. But in the end, we know that his ways are not yet our ways, and his timing is perfect whether we like it or not.
Lord, fill us with hope and joy as we wait with anticipation for you and for your perfect moment of provision for all of our needs.
Your Time with God’s Word
Acts 24:24-27, 25:22-24, 26:1-3, 24-32, 28:21-23, 30-31 ESV
Photo by Pexels
To receive daily posts delivered directly to your inbox, complete the form at the bottom of our home page.
