The Long Wait
Do you remember when you were a kid and you had to wait for something? A birthday, Christmas, your best friend coming to sleep over on a Friday night? Anticipation was mixed with the feeling that time was dragging by in slow motion. Somewhere along the way, we learned the art that waiting for something was worth it. We were invested in the experience. We learned to appreciate whatever it was once it finally happened.
And then we grew up.
It’s not that we don’t still don’t look forward to things. It’s just that we are focused on so many issues — problems, work, how are going to pay for this or that. We have concerns over heath, our parents getting older, and relationships that burden our hearts… It’s just not as simple as it used to be, and we get discouraged.
The world keeps giving us all these gadgets so we don’t have to wait. Instant gratification comes in all kinds of ways. We have InstaPots that cook a roast in 45 minutes. We text and FaceTime and Instant Message as if we stepped right out of the Star Trek series. We zip and zap and send things, no longer needing to touch them first. It seems there is no limit to what’s ahead in how we will connect and communicate.
I wonder though, when it comes to important things, why God still makes us wait.
It’s not popular, but I am one who thinks that this is how it’s supposed to be. In a time where reveal parties are the rage, I am admittedly old fashioned. Having given birth to four beautiful babies, we only found out with one of them what kind of Pampers we would buy. I used to say, “If God really wanted us to know the sex ahead of time, He would cause our belly buttons to turn blue or pink.” Truth is, I liked the surprise of meeting my babies fresh from heaven and finding out who they were when they arrived.
God has a habit of giving us a promise and then keeping us in the dark for a bit. It’s like He plants a seed inside our spirit, and we know that He is at work, yet we don’t see how in the world it’s going to manifest. He gives us things to do in the meantime — work, trust, follow His ways — and we only have a vague understanding that we are on the right path.
Sometimes its a long, long wait.
We find that anticipation is in our faith. We believe we will be healed. We believe our ends will meet. We believe that our sorrows will turn again to joy… We just don’t always know how.
The opposite is also true. When we think that there are no rules, when we think that there are no reasons to wait and just live in the now, things get messed up. They get out of order. We don’t realize the consequences that having what we want, when we want it, will bring.
We overspend. We overeat. We sin. We think with selfish ends and shallow, hard hearts.
Then we wish we could be kids again when everything was simple.
The Proverbs are full of teachings of why it is best to wait. They speak of the need to plant our crops and wait for harvest. They implore us to not get off the track of righteousness because “a way seems right to a man” but in the end, his fate is never what he expected. They beg us not to stray, and caution that if we dig a pit, we are bound to fall in it.
I have lived long enough to know that there are no short cuts to the things that are important. We have to become good at waiting. We can’t peek at our Christmas gifts and still be surprised. We can’t be dishonest or unfaithful and then wonder why our relationships are in shambles. We can’t do things counter to the laws of being prudent and thoughtful and wise, and still expect to have what only waiting for them will bring.
What if we stopped looking for the quick fix, the instant rush that having something now brings, and just put in the time and let things unfold as they are supposed to? What if we really did just understand that faith is anticipating an outcome that is completely out of our hands but in His?
We honor God when we honor the process. And I believe He knows when we do.
There is a saying that I love: “It is better to wait on God, then to have it now and wish you had.”
Like me, I know that you have things that you are praying for.
Good things really do come to those who wait.
Just wait and see.