On Waiting
Hurry up and wait. Ever heard this expression? I can think of several times in my life when I absolutely didn’t want to wait. Some things you just can’t force to go any faster no matter how badly you wish for it: the first cup of coffee to finish brewing (why on my worst mornings does it actually take longer??), the dog pooping (especially when it is 32 or below outside with sharp winds), the phone call from my doctor telling me if my biopsy came back positive for cancer, my husband to reach retirement age. You get the picture. Sometimes it is just our human nature not wanting to wait. Sometimes we are forced to wait whether we want to or not. It’s not always your choice.
Our society has become such that a common mentality is the faster you move, the more you produce, the more successful you will become. That is probably true for about 10% of the US population (not a real statistic, just my best guess); however, I’m quickly realizing that it isn’t true for me. It has taken me a really long time, 42 years to be exact, to figure out why waiting is actually sometimes a blessing. I had a conversation with my dad not too long ago, and he mentioned that oftentimes he finds when he waits something out, the problems end up solving themselves. He said he has found that if he doesn’t wait, he ends up working so hard to fix things that appear to be broken when in reality if he had done nothing at all, the same result would have come to be as if he had just waited…with a lot less stress, effort, and sleepless nights. That conversation stuck with me, and I thought about it afterward. I wondered how many times I had intervened in a situation thinking I knew best or thought I could fix it better than someone else could, sometimes even God, when I should have just waited it out.
Waiting well is something you have to grow into. My children HATE to wait, especially the youngest two. I think most children hate waiting, but mine loathe it. Wait for your turn with the toy. Wait for your turn in the bathroom. Wait for your turn to go first. Wait for your turn at the sink. Wait for your turn on the slide. Wait for your turn to jump into the pool. Wait for your turn to sing in the car. Constantly waiting, and they both struggle with it. I often hear the whining and complaining. I hear, “She got to go first last time” accompanied with a stomp and crossed arms staring back at me with a pouty face. I wonder sometimes if this is how we seem to God when we can’t wait for his timing. When things aren’t going your way and you are praying “Big Faith” prayers, how do you respond to the waiting? Do you whine and complain to others about how you’re praying but God isn’t answering? Do you start to question God and his ability to work and move in your life and situation? Or do you stand strong in your faith knowing God’s plan is always greater than anything you could do on your own? Do you lay your burdens down at his feet and walk away? Or do you keep going back, picking them up, trying to fix things, and then realizing you can’t-so you once again lay them back at his feet again–and do this over and over feeling all of the anxiety and dread as you get caught in this pattern?
In reading through the gospels, I realized something about the miracles of Jesus. Each time he performed a miracle, he was moved by faith. Let me say that again. Each time Jesus performed something miraculous in the life of an ordinary person, he was moved by that person’s faith.
To have faith in the waiting is one of the hardest lessons to learn as we mature as Christians. I remember a quote I heard once that said, “I’ll praise in the hallway while I’m waiting on God to open a door.” Sometimes we don’t know what direction God is going to take us. When we trust with absolute unwavering faith in those moments of uncertainty, I believe our faith radar lights up loud and clear for God to see, and only then do we begin to see his hand move in our lives.
A recent meme that has been circulating the internet is one that has a single beautiful flower with the label over the top reading “My Plan”. Beside it is a huge, beautiful bouquet of various flowers with a label over the top reading “God’s Plan.” This puts things in perspective. In our humanity, we think of a way to solve the problem and pray that God would do it that way. However, we forget that we serve the God who created the entire universe in six days with the oceans and the tides, the sun and moon and stars, the creatures of the ocean, the animals he gave us dominion over, and YOU, in His own image. He has an incredible creative ability to move in a way that will not only solve your problem for you, but his solution will also include lots of other moving pieces behind the scenes that solve problems for others in a giant matrix that our human minds could not comprehend if we even tried, much less execute.
So, slow down.
Stop.
Pause.
Take a breath.
The God of the universe knows your name and exactly what you’ve been asking him for in prayer. He is busy working behind the scenes right now to help send rescue. Trust him. Trust his love. Trust his power and ability. Most importantly, learn to wait for him. His plan and His timing will be absolute perfection.
Just wait and see.
