Wait For It...

Waiting. We are not creatures who are very fond of this activity. In fact, most of us would rather get a root canal than wait. Maybe I should speak for myself - I would usually rather hit myself in the thumb with a hammer than have to wait. I've never actually had a root canal so I've got to stop using that reference. Waiting can be painful and grueling. Waiting on that someone to call. Waiting to find out if you got that job...or you'll have to keep looking. Waiting to see whether or not the treatment is actually going to work this time. Waiting. 

I'm discovering that our hatred of this apparent state of inactivity - and our occasional unwillingness to participate in it - cause us to miss the hand of the One who created us and to miss something bigger and better that He had for us on the other side. It is not just loose rhetoric that Isaiah tells us that "...those that wait on the Lord will renew their strength." Most of the time we view waiting as simply that - waiting. We don't realize that we're being allowed to go through this process because the process itself does something to us.

Waiting is a refining fire. It begins to strip away these outer surface layers of self-centeredness. Waiting causes us to decide whether or not we are going to be creatures of trust & faith or control & entitlement. Waiting is out of our hands. Waiting sets the table and offers 1 of 2 main courses: worry & want...or prayer. Dinner is served.

I don't know what you might be waiting on: news, healing, that someone to finally arrive, satisfaction, tomorrow.........or the next day. Whatever you're waiting on please know that the waiting is where WHO you are is formed, shaped, refined and revealed. Yes, it can be painful and No, it will probably not be over as soon as you'd like. But in the end, you will "...rise up on wings like eagles. You will run and not grow weary; you will walk and not faint."

And that is worth waiting for.

Isaiah 40:27-31

Philippians 4:6-7

Matthew 9:17

Zechariah 13:9

Psalm 40:1-3