Hurry up and . . . Wait?

None of us likes to wait, yet how much of our lives is spent waiting for someone or for something to happen? Waiting in line at the grocery store, waiting for your most recent Amazon order, or even waiting for your work-day to end so that you can clock out and spend time the way that you please. 

As a pastor, waiting comes with the territory of ministry. As I write this, I am sitting in the hospital waiting room, waiting as a young couple from our church is welcoming their first child into the world. They have been waiting in excited anticipation for this moment for over 9 months, and soon their waiting will be eclipsed by joy as they hold their tiny bundle of life that God has given to them. 

As a foreign missionary, I cannot count the number of hours, days, weeks, or even months that we have waited for things like immigration decisions, finding a suitable place to live with a landlord who is willing to work with you as a foreigner, or even to get into the medical system. (When we moved to Newfoundland, we had to wait for over four years to get a primary care physician!)

As a child, waiting has to be one of the most torturous aspects of growing up — waiting for Christmas, waiting for your birthday, waiting for your driver’s license, waiting until you were old enough to _________. I remember those times well, especially since my own children are now at those same ages, and my son is eagerly anticipating getting his driving permit. 

But while waiting for some things can be exciting, it is not something that any one of us actually enjoy. Yes, some have a more patient disposition and can make it seem like waiting is no big deal, but deep down, I’m sure that many of us would view it as an inconvenience that we would rather not endure.  Which leads us to the following question:

If waiting is such an integral part of life, why is it so difficult?

Part of the reason has to do with the fact that when we are forced to wait, we are at the mercy of someone else’s time, schedule, and plans, and we are no longer in control of that circumstance.  When we can no longer influence or dictate our desired outcome, we grow anxious and afraid.  It is precisely that lack of control, the fear of the unknown that disturbs us (me) the most about waiting. 

Years ago when we were just starting out on deputation for our first field of service in Siberia, Russia we had the opportunity to participate in a missions conference at a large church in Illinois. It was the biggest church we have ever been in with well over one thousand people in attendance, and we were definitely the youngest missionary family there that week (I was just twenty-two and only on full-time deputation for about 4 months). Each missionary preached on different nights of the week throughout the conference, and, when my night came and the special music was finished and it was time to get up and preach, I did something that traumatized my wife unto this day.

I didn’t get up.

I stayed seated on the platform, not saying or doing anything.

You could hear a pin drop as everyone was wondering what was going on. (Keep in mind that not only was this church huge, but everything moved like a well-oiled machine when it came to the service schedule. There was no dead time because everything segued smoothly into the next). It wasn’t long before you started hearing people clear their throats or coughing nervously, and, when I finally rose from my seat sixty seconds later, you could hear an audible sigh of relief from everyone in the congregation. After the service, my wife told me that she almost left the auditorium because she couldn’t handle the stress of not knowing what I was doing.  To this day, my wife reminds me of the stress and anxiety that I caused her, all because I made everyone wait for sixty seconds. 

(By the way, the purpose of my waiting sixty seconds before getting up to preach was to illustrate that while we don’t like to wait, even for sixty seconds, how long have many around the world had to wait for someone to take the good news of the Gospel to them? And, just to set your mind at ease, I did let the assistant pastor, who was running the service, know what I was going to do.)

Yet, no matter how much we dislike it, there is no escaping the fact that waiting is part of life — both physical and spiritual. In fact, the Bible teaches that waiting is an essential element of spiritual growth. With that in mind, following are a few meditations about what God teaches me by learning to wait on Him:

Waiting on the Lord teaches me to find my strength in Him

Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.

Psalm 27:14

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Isaiah 40:31

When everything is humming along smoothly without a hiccup or glitch, I feel strong and confident because I am planning, executing, and accomplishing things; but when God suddenly applies the brakes and tells me to wait, all at once, the very things that were my drive and motivation are taken away.  It is then, when other sources of strength are removed, that the Lord graciously reveals to me that I have been looking to something or someone other than Him for strength. In that time of waiting, I learn how to draw my strength from Him and not who I am, what I am accomplishing, or who is around me.

Waiting on the Lord teaches me to place my expectations in God, not my circumstances or my abilities

My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.

Psalm 62:5

According to the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, the word expectation conveys the idea of “[w]aiting with steadfast endurance [which] is a great expression of faith. It means enduring patiently in confident hope that God will decisively act…”.

Much like the first point, it is all too easy to set my hopes and expectations in others or in my circumstances instead of in God.  Waiting strips all of those away and forces me to find my source of hope and confidence in the Lord.

When I set my expectations in God, I must make sure that my hope and expectations are in who God is as He has revealed Himself in His Word, not as I want Him to be.  All too often I claim to be confidently hoping in God, but, in reality, I am hoping in what I think God should do.  God does not change in order to meet my expectations of Him.  My expectations must be brought into line with who God is in actuality and I must alter and adjust them based upon what the Word of God teaches.

Waiting on the Lord teaches me the right perspective

Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the LORD, and he shall save thee.

Proverbs 20:22

How often do I think I know how something should turn out or how I should handle a certain situation and God simply says, “Wait”?  It is in that time of waiting that I begin to understand God’s perspective on the event or circumstance in my life as I submit to His working in my life and walk with Him through the waiting process.  Rushing ahead in my own wisdom blinds me to the bigger picture that God is working in and around me. God, in His great mercy, brings times of waiting in order to shatter my illusion of wisdom and teach me His perspective.

Waiting on the Lord is for my good and it allows me to experience the goodness of the Lord in a way that would not otherwise be possible

The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.  It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

Lamentations 3:25-26

Ultimately, God says that waiting is for my good, regardless of whether or not I enjoy it or think it is; therefore, how I wait displays whether or not I truly trust Him.  God designs times of waiting to be precious lessons about His sufficiency, His strength, His sovereignty, His love, and much more.  Being forced to slow down and even stop and wait is an expression of God’s goodness to me because it allows me to learn lessons that would not otherwise be learned had I not gone through the difficulty of waiting.

Conclusion

Waiting is rarely what I would choose, but I am so thankful that my God does not leave the choice up to me.  He deals with me according to what I need — and I need the lessons that come from waiting.  The next time that God tells you to wait on something that you think you absolutely need right now, be willing to submit to His process and experience the goodness of God that comes from learning to wait.

Many of the meditations in this post are summarized beautifully in the lyrics below. I first heard it as a duet by Mac & Beth Lynch, and I pray that it will be a blessing and challenge as we all endeavor to learn the lessons that God wants to teach us through waiting.

Tho’ the pathway before you uncertain may be

Trust the Lord no good thing to withhold back from thee.

He is perfect in wisdom and faithful to bless.

Trust His Word — in His time He will give you His best.

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength

They shall mount up with wings as eagles

They shall run and not grow weary

They’ll walk and not faint

Wait, I say, wait on the Lord.