The Wait

Oh, the joys of waiting! In line at the store, we wonder why more registers aren’t open. At the doctor’s office, we wait knowing we’re probably adding illnesses to our diagnosis with each tick of the clock. As a culture, we get creative to avoid having to practice patience. Now we can order our “fast food” even faster. Using an app and walking to the front of the line at Chipotle to grab my order makes me feel like I won the waiting game… for once.But then there’s soul-level waiting. It’s the wait that keeps us restless. It’s the wait that aches inside. Maybe you’re waiting on the man who will one day be your husband. Where is he? Perhaps you’re waiting on the positive pregnancy test. What about the wait for justice? What about the wait for your heart to heal after it’s been torn in two by death?When I step back from all the waiting in my life and ask the eventual “Why?”, it’s hard to miss the fact that so much of life is spent waiting. The moment we become aware of a need is when the wait begins. Some of our waiting is measured in days and some in years. Either way, we each have a decision to make.

What will you do with your wait?

There are 1,000 different things we can do in our season of waiting, but I think they can all be summed up by deciding:

Will you turn to God?Or will you turn from God?

We’re each given a choice. I challenge you to choose to turn to God in your wait.If you’re a follower of Christ, you might feel like this is a no brainer. “Of course I want to turn to God!” But don’t be tricked into thinking that means you can be passive. Turning to God actually means you dig deeper into His word. You lean in closer. You silence the noise so you can hear His sometimes quiet voice.[bctt tweet="In your waiting, are you turning to God or from God?"]It means you don’t step until He says so. It means you acknowledge His sovereignty and submit to it. If you’re not in a season of waiting, this can seem so obvious. But if you are currently waiting, it’s easy to turn to God… until you get a better idea. The temptation to fix it ourselves can become our biggest obstacle. In those moments of temptation, we must answer the question again: Am I turning to God or from God?Waiting is not for the faint of heart, but God doesn’t let the wait be wasted. There’s something for us to learn in our wait. There’s something more significant and meaningful that’s forged in us through the wait. We can trust God. He will use us in our waiting. He will change us in our waiting. He will make us more like Him, all while we join the author of Psalm 130 in crying out:

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope…