Waiting for Things to Pass
[bl]T[/bl]here’s a tension found in waiting. A pulling back and forth, a working against between stillness and restlessness. We’re not quite sure how to be in these moments. We rest, we fidget. We’re calm, we’re anxious. We hope, we doubt. Because waiting involves trusting. Trusting that the One who works all things out for his glory, will also work all things out for our good. And we’re not always convinced of this. But if we’re waiting, it means we have little control in working it out ourselves for if that was possible we wouldn’t be waiting, we’d be doing.
And so we wait…for dark clouds to pass. For babies to be knit. For husbands to return. For God to lead forward. For someone to love us. For difficult days to be behind us. And we wait…for our new reality to sink in. For life that didn’t form to slip away. For a place to be provided. For the heart of another to soften. For our children to understand. For our house to sell. For our needs to be met. For our paperwork to be finished. For a job to open up. We wait.
We wait for these things to pass or come to be.
And in this waiting we learn to be gracious to the very Giver of Grace. For in our stillness, our trusting heart invites him to enter and lead us out of our waiting. And if the way God provides is different than we imagined, we plead with our heart to receive his ways as better than ours. And in our restlessness, our anxiety and fear reveal to him just how much we care, and just how much we need him.
In our waiting, we can’t be certain of the outcomes. We can’t be certain of the timing. Or even our responses.
But here is what we can be certain of:
When we wait upon the Lord, he will turn to us and hear our cries, our concerns, our needs.
We will always have periods of waiting that keep us trusting. That hone our heart to receive God’s activity in his timing. May we believe that God is present in our waiting. And may we have the patience to walk a little slower through these days in order to listen for it, see it.
The LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! Isaiah 30:18
