Waiting is definitely a theme in life. My children waited for that bug pictured above to move off the leaf. My husband is patiently waiting for me in the second shot. (“Why is my wife always taking pictures?” is in his thoughts.) Even the last shot of the burst of color on the trees is a testament to waiting for winter to come.
I am waiting for many things. I am waiting for the end of the semester. I am waiting for my Masters of Education program to start. I am enjoying fall but I am waiting for Christmas. I am also waiting to go back home to Canada. I am waiting.
There is a clever snippet from Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go! The waiting place . . . where everyone is just waiting.” Waiting rather quickly loses whatever romance it might have had early on, but even so, I know very few people who are not, at any given time, waiting for something. Test results. A loved one’s return. Someone to marry. A child to hold.
The Bible is a book full of waiters. Sarai. Elizabeth. Hannah. Moses. Job. David. Hosea. Jonah. What might we have heard if their voices had been recorded?
“It’s no use.”
“I’ll never have a child.”
“Why should I be stuck herding someone else’s sheep for the rest of my life?”
“I’ve lost everything. When will you turn this thing around, God?”
“Samuel must have been mistaken about that king thing. Saul will kill me before he lets me take the throne.”
Or maybe just, “Help, Lord!”
Some waiters wallowed in self-doubt and pity. For a while. But more often than not, these God followers learned to linger in their waiting places, seeing all that there was to see. And what there usually was to see was evidence of a great, patient, provident God at work—in the smallest of circumstances and in the hidden places of the human heart.
A wise friend once told me that we are never alone in the cold, dim cave of uncertainty. When our eyes adjust to the half-light, he said, we will see that there are tens, hundreds, thousands even, waiting with us. And maybe, he said, waiting for a word from us that injects hope or humor or sense into what makes no immediate sense at all.
Are you waiting? Me, too.
Here’s God’s word for us both:
The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. ISAIAH 40: 28-29
I am waiting for many things. I am waiting for the end of the semester. I am waiting for my Masters of Education program to start. I am enjoying fall but I am waiting for Christmas. I am also waiting to go back home to Canada. I am waiting.
There is a clever snippet from Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go! The waiting place . . . where everyone is just waiting.” Waiting rather quickly loses whatever romance it might have had early on, but even so, I know very few people who are not, at any given time, waiting for something. Test results. A loved one’s return. Someone to marry. A child to hold.
The Bible is a book full of waiters. Sarai. Elizabeth. Hannah. Moses. Job. David. Hosea. Jonah. What might we have heard if their voices had been recorded?
“It’s no use.”
“I’ll never have a child.”
“Why should I be stuck herding someone else’s sheep for the rest of my life?”
“I’ve lost everything. When will you turn this thing around, God?”
“Samuel must have been mistaken about that king thing. Saul will kill me before he lets me take the throne.”
Or maybe just, “Help, Lord!”
Some waiters wallowed in self-doubt and pity. For a while. But more often than not, these God followers learned to linger in their waiting places, seeing all that there was to see. And what there usually was to see was evidence of a great, patient, provident God at work—in the smallest of circumstances and in the hidden places of the human heart.
A wise friend once told me that we are never alone in the cold, dim cave of uncertainty. When our eyes adjust to the half-light, he said, we will see that there are tens, hundreds, thousands even, waiting with us. And maybe, he said, waiting for a word from us that injects hope or humor or sense into what makes no immediate sense at all.
Are you waiting? Me, too.
Here’s God’s word for us both:
The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. ISAIAH 40: 28-29
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