Recently I’ve been feeling like my life is going through a bit of a rut. Actually ‘rut’ may not be the best word as ‘rut’ implies movement, of which I don’t seem to be experiencing any. I’d like to think that I’m always growing in my relationship with God and moving faster toward completing some impossible task he’s set before me, but in reality it’s not happening right now. Nothing’s happening actually. Not even a breeze. Now for someone like me who can’t sit still even for a minute, that pretty much amounts to torture. But what really frightens me about the whole situation is the realisation that the difference between a rut and a grave is only a couple of centimeters…

So I’ve been praying for light at the end of the tunnel. And just the other night that light shone. It was raining and I was driving while listening to a song called ‘there’s a light up ahead’. I love driving, I love rain at night, I love that song and so I really love driving in rain at night listening to that song! In that happy place I saw the light up ahead…the long awaited light at the end of the tunnel…it was a robot…and it was red.

At that moment I realized something, that sometimes the light at the end is not a shiny new heaven but in fact a command to wait.

And I hate waiting. I’m incredibly impatient. In trying to justify my aversion to waiting I reason that it’s because by nature I’m a procrastinator, a really bad one, and I think waiting is procrastinating. And so I hate to do it. But after seeing the light up ahead I’ve started to think that there’s something powerful in the command to wait.

Isaiah 64:4 says: “For since the world began, no ear has heard, and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for him!” Lam 3:25 says “The Lord is good to those who wait for him…”

For the kind of person who really struggles with sitting around waiting for things to happen, these verses come as a shock. Why would God place special blessing on those who wait for him? I think it’s because waiting is a discipline that encompasses two of the greatest Christian principles: Faith and hope.

Psalm 33:20-22 says: “Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in him, because we have trusted in his Holy name. Let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us, just as we hope in you”

You see in order to wait for God you really have to have faith in what God is doing. You have to trust him as a God who knows what’s best and is doing what’s best. If you have some doubt about that, then you’ll get anxious waiting, and go off to make things happen for yourself. Too many times that’s been my reaction. I’ve never fully realised how waiting is such an incredibly powerful statement of faith in God. I’ve always found it so hard to wait, but now I see that weakness as a challenge to the the amount of faith that I have. And right now I see that it’s not much. Waiting is really a statement of faith.

But the waiting in faith that I do is also tied up in hope. In the book of Hebrews it says that “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for”. Waiting in faith implies there’s a real hope that I have, hope in the love and sovereignty of God. It’s really that simple. Blind faith waits because that’s what some guy said it must do. Blind faith waits because that’s what some verse said it must do. Real faith waits because of real hope.

And perhaps the best thing about hope is that it provides focus for the waiting. And that’s a huge sigh of relief for me. I couldn’t reconcile that I have to sit at home and watch TV now that I’ve learnt the power of waiting. But now I know it’s about waiting hopefully, waiting patiently, waiting intently. U2 made a line of scripture famous, the one from Psalm 40:1 “I waited patiently for the Lord, and he turned to me, and heard my cry”. A more literal translation would say “I waited intently for the Lord”. Waiting with intent is perhaps the best description of how to wait. So now I wait, and I wait with intent for the Lord to act, for that’s where my hope lies.

But even then waiting is not as easy as it sounds, even if you’re not the type who can never sit still. The story where Jesus allowed his friend Lazarus to die comes to mind (John 11). Lazarus’ sisters Mary and Martha called on Jesus but He allowed 4 days to pass before going to help them, all the while knowing that in this time lazarus would die. 4 days! 4 days of grief, sorrow and broken hearts. Why did he make them wait so long? Faith and hope….and Lazarus was resurrected. I think I can wait.

In Hebrews chapter 6 Abraham is described as a man blessed as he waited intently for the Lord, for the fulfillment of a promise of a generation of stars. We know that at one point Abraham’s patience faltered, but in the end he hung on to hope, and we live in the legacy of his faith as part of his generation of stars. At least now I know there’s real hope for me…

Posted by Rich on Sunday, November 12th, 2006 at 12:51 and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.