When we’re in a season of waiting
Does anyone actually like waiting? It feels like doing wall-sits indefinitely.
And we do a lot of waiting in life. We wait…
…on hold with the airlines or for the utility installers to arrive.
…for results from a medical test.
…for an answer from the admissions office at the university we want to attend.
…for the pandemic to end.
…for whatever difficult situation we’re dealing with to resolve.
…for Jesus to come again and set all things right.
When we’re waiting, time seems to move like molasses on a winter day.
And when the resolution is so long in coming, it’s easy to wonder whether God has forgotten us (or worse).
When we know Him to be the powerful God He is—able to suspend the natural laws He put into place—we wonder why He doesn’t just part the waters of our “Jordan River” and end our wilderness waiting.
It confuses us that He doesn’t.
That confusion arises because we conflate timing with activity.
We errantly believe that if God doesn’t appear to be acting quickly (read: according to our timelines), He’s not acting at all.
That He doesn’t hear us.
Doesn’t see us.
Doesn’t care.
In such moments, we might be tempted to retreat from God… to turn away from Him because we think He’s turned His back on us.
Been there? We all have.
But there is another way.
Instead of turning away, we can turn toward Him, allowing the promises of Scripture to help us wait in faith (even if we’re a bit angsty or tearful as we do).
We can turn toward Him by searching His Word for times when long-awaited plans did come to fruition.
Abraham’s descendants have multiplied.
The floodwaters eventually receded
Jesus rose from death on the third day.
The promised Holy Spirit did come.
May we be encouraged by the examples of those who, in Hebrews, are described as “not having received the things promised” before they died, but saw them and greeted them from afar (Hebrews 13:13 ESV; emphasis mine). They trusted God to accomplish His good and perfect will though they never saw it come to fruition.
They waited—and lived—in faith, certain that God was at work, trusting that He is, indeed, El Roi… the God who sees us even when they might not have seen Him as they’d hoped.
A dear friend of mine—who is in the midst of a slow recovery from a very serious health crisis—sent me the photo of her orchid (above). It hasn’t bloomed in six years. Six years. But now, while she’s in the midst of this difficult season of waiting, it blooms.
She’s taken it as a reminder that God is at work, making all things beautiful in His time (Ecclesiastes 3:11 ESV; emphasis mine).