God’s People Wait

I’m writing over at The Glorious Table today! See the preview below…

Winter is l-o-n-g, and we are sitting dead center in it. The hoopla of the holidays has faded, and the chirps of birds and budding of new leaves are still several weeks in the future. This is the waiting time. Waiting for spring. Waiting for warmth. Waiting for the new life that always comes, but sometimes seems to take forever.

Waiting is a skill many of us aren’t good at anymore. Even those who make an intentional effort toward “being present” and “savoring the moment” can’t help but be influenced by the reality that we live with microwaves, instant communication, and commercial-less television. It’s hard to be a person who knows how to “wait well” because, in truth, we have so little opportunity to practice.

Our modern lack of waiting leaves us vulnerable to spiritual crisis. We may find ourselves not only impatient, but also questioning God, questioning ourselves, and wanting desperately for a season of waiting to “hurry up” so we can understand and see what is on the other side. We want to know why, we want to know how long, and we want to know what we can do to “fix” a season we may perceive as broken.

Well, my sweet Jesus-following friends, rather than assuming the negative, let’s all settle into this important truth: God’s people have always been a waiting people. The Israelites waited for deliverance out of Egypt (Exodus 20:2), Noah and his crew floated around for forty days to only then wait for another seven for the dove to come back (Genesis 8:12), and Sarah got gray hair waiting for a baby (Genesis 18:10-12). Even Jesus practiced waiting (John 7:6, 11:5-6). Thematically, waiting is as strong a storyline as almost any other in the Bible. I would suggest that if we are going to be God-followers, we are also going to be God-waiters.

To read the full post go to The Glorious Table here.