Hating Waiting

“And sure enough, even waiting will end...if you can just wait long enough.”  William Faulkner

  A few weeks ago I left my I-phone downstairs overnight. Typically, I have it next to my bed, as we no longer have a landline in case of an emergency…I also use it for my alarm. The next morning when I picked it up, my phone was dead. While I didn’t think it had run out of battery overnight, I plugged it in to see if perhaps that might be the problem. It wasn’t. So I took it to our in-house technology guru, but she couldn’t figure out what the problem was either. To be honest, it was kind of nice to not have a phone but I knew I needed to resolve it. So after lunch I headed to my local cell phone provider’s store.

  My family will tell you that I try to never go anywhere without a book. After all, you never know when you might break down, run out of gas or be stuck with a long train. That day there was just one service rep in the store and three other people were ahead of me. As I waited, I caught up on some reading. After an hour, the tech was still assisting the same customers that he was when I first walked in, so I decided to become the official “non-greeter.” I’d seen others walk in, wait a bit and when it became apparent the line wasn’t moving, leave in a huff. I made it humorous yet began to warn newbies that it might be a l-o-n-g wait, as those ahead of them had already been waiting over an hour. One family came in, noticed the line and mentioned that maybe they should check online first. Overhearing that I encouraged them to do so, even joking that the DMV might be faster. I wasn’t upset or rude. I truly was trying to keep others from becoming frustrated and the rep actually thanked me for being an official non-greeter.

  It probably violates some dumb company policy to warn patrons of long waits. Yet, I’m sure glares from impatient customers are stressful for reps. No one wants to agitate others, particularly when it’s out of our control.

  Most of us deplore waiting. One friend defined a “nanosecond” as that brief moment of time from when the traffic light turns green to when the person behind you hits their horn if you don’t move. We hate standing in line, despise traffic and twiddling our thumbs in the doctor’s office frustrates us. Waiting is nearly criminal in our time oriented culture, yet it’s a part of life that we all have to learn to endure.

  But there are other more serious kinds of waiting than that of waiting for customer service. There’s the waiting of a single person to see if God has marriage in the future for him or her. There’s the waiting of a childless couple, desperately longing to start a family but year after year…their prayers bear no fruit. There’s the waiting of someone with a serious disease and the treatment is almost as bad as the illness. There’s the waiting of the person suffering with depression who struggles each day to get out of bed. They wonder if they’ll ever see the sun shine again in their life.

  Many of us have experienced difficult waiting times. Perhaps it’s what inspired Lewis Smedes to write, “Waiting is our destiny. As creatures who cannot by themselves bring about what they hope for, we wait in the darkness for a flame we cannot light. We wait in fear for a happy ending we cannot write. We wait for a ‘not yet’ that feels like a ‘not ever.”

  Yet, God often calls us to wait. Waiting, without question is the hardest work of hope. As we read the Bible, God Himself, Who is all-powerful, all-wise, and all-loving repeatedly asks us to do just that – to wait. In the book of Genesis God came to Abraham when he was already 75 years old and said, “Abraham, you’re going to become a father, you’ll be the forefather of a great nation. But it won’t happen today…you must wait.” And it took nearly a quarter of a century. God told His people, Israel, they would be a great nation that they’d be able to leave the slavery of Egypt and be free and independent… but they had to wait 400 years for that to happen.

  We wait and we wait. 43 times in the Old Testament, we find this command, “Wait on the Lord.” It’s an instruction running through Scripture until the last words in the last chapter of the book of Revelation. The Apostle John closes with, “The One who testifies to these things, says, ‘Behold, I am coming soon.” It may not seem like it, but in light of eternity, it’s soon. Then, John pens this reply, “Come, Lord Jesus.” In other words, “We’ll hang on. But please come. We’re waiting for you.”

  Why? Why does God make us wait? After all, God can do anything and since He’s all loving, why doesn’t He bring us relief and quick answers?

  Because it’s in the waiting God molds and matures us. What God does in us while we wait is as important as what we are waiting for. It’s hard for us to understand, but there’s vital growth that can only happen to us in those times when we suffer through long periods of waiting. God makes us wait because He knows it’s good for us. As we wait, He is at work in us…molding us and shaping us, maturing us.

  Waiting is something by its very nature that only the humble can do, or at least only the humble can do with grace. To wait for someone is to realize I’m not in control or calling the shots. In our society there’s a direct correlation between status and waiting. To grow in times of waiting on God we must remember we’re not in charge. He’s the Potter; we’re the clay. 

  Are you having difficulty waiting on God? Is it because you’re trusting more in your timing than His? Is your pride making it more difficult? Have you forgotten who the creature is and that He’s the Creator? You can trust the Father’s wisdom and timing because you can always trust His heart. 

Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address.