Isn’t it true?
I’m hard-pressed to think of a time when I’m not waiting for something.
Some things take a long time to wait for, other things are short waits. And there are even things we wait for that never happen. Sometimes we wait for things and we don’t know what they are.
We wait for vacation time, and we wait to come home. We wait for the right person. We wait for the big question and the wedding day. We wait for pregnancy and we wait for the birth of a child.
We wait for a friend to call and we wait to call a friend. We wait for the big game and for the snacks to be ready. We wait for people to arrive and we wait for them to go home (hopefully not too often).
We wait for the flowers to bloom and we wait another day to cut the grass. We wait for a better job or we wait for a raise or we wait to be fired. We wait for payday.
We wait for Sunday to come around and we wait for the kids to get better. We wait for test results and we wait for the evening when we can crash. We wait for our kids to know Jesus as their Savior.
We wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We wait for Good Friday and we especially wait for Easter Sunday. We wait for the coming again of the Lord and we wait for the glory of God in heaven.
All this waiting got me thinking about the things we don’t have to wait for. I don’t have to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. He lives in me and counsels me. I don’t have to wait for a Savior. The Savior has come and salvation is mine through Jesus Christ. I don’t have to wait for God to make Himself known. He is known through His Word that I can read as often as I want.
I don’t have to wait to be comforted by the Comforter, or to be known by the all-knowing God.
The biggest matters of life, I do not have to wait for. God has satisfied the waiting time with His Son and His Spirit.
Yet, on Earth, waiting for a million other things, some very important, remains. And what an opportunity to trust God and to know that as we wait, we wait on Him. I say with David:
“I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.”
What have you been waiting on lately?
Abigail, you said this so beautifully! What a gift God has given you in writing. Wow.
Yes, all of life is waiting. I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for so much. I feel like my prayer is always for patience.
Your post has help me to see that I need a new perspective. Expect to wait! (You need less patience if that is your expectation. 🙂
I love how you made a list of things for which we don’t have to wait. I am going to post that list on my fridge.
So, when I’m waiting for the sun to shine, someone to potty train, a client to send me the edits, the baby to fall asleep, the kitchen to stay clean, or the laundry to do itself … I can be reminded that almost everything temporal requires waiting. But almost everything with eternal significance is here in my heart or in the Word, or in the promise of Christ’s return.
Thanks for sharing that Ab!
What God does in us
While we wait… As important
As what we wait for
(Haiku version of John Ortberg quote:)