On a daily basis, we all live in the stop and go of life. Between activities and events, we wait. We sit in dentist offices, bus stops, driver’s license bureaus, post office lines and daily commute traffic…waiting. We try to pass the time during these various activities by calling or texting a friend, reading a book, doing work on the go or annoyingly drumming our fingernails on a hard surface so everyone around us is consciously aware that we are waiting. We wait for test results, transcripts, raises, promotions and our morning Starbucks latte. We wait to hear a health prognosis of a loved one and wait for people we want to talk with to call us back. We tell kids “Wait, and I’ll tell you when you’re older.” We wait on our servers to bring out our check, wait for paint to dry, wait long hours on a flight to arrive at our destination and wait on hold when we call the phone company.
Waiting is the lull that happens between what we just did and what we’re about to do. It’s the painstaking void between activities. Waiting is the space that temporarily holds us until the next circumstance is ready for us or we are ready for it. Sometimes we actually initiate the waiting. We wait to return a phone call we’re dreading or wait as long as possible to have a conversation with a loved one that we know will be difficult. We wait to ask for help and wait to speak up when we aren’t feeling confident. But the waiting we loathe is the waiting flung upon us that we did not choose. Waiting seems bothersome and inconvenient most of the time in our go-go-go world where we’d like to skip spaces in the Monopoly game and jump to the next square. But waiting is not just a void or a gap in time between activities. Waiting is the incubator G-d uses to change and form us into His image.
Let’s look more closely at how that works.
Waiting is a big deal to G-d. It is mentioned in scripture 73 times. Stepping into the historical accounts of scripture we see time and time again, story after story where waiting produced the will of G-d while simultaneously building character and strength of heart within the main protagonists of the story. In contrast, more often than not times of rushing ahead ended in failure and disaster. Esau could not wait to eat and so he forfeited his birthright for a hot meal. (Genesis 25:29-34) But times of waiting ended in reward. Hannah waited and prayed earnestly for a son and her cries were heard on high and she was no longer barren. (1 Samuel 1:20) In Acts 1:4 the believers in Jerusalem were instructed to wait and not leave the city so that the promise the Father was sending could come. Those who waited at the Feast of Pentecost received the promised Holy Spirit.
A classic story about waiting is the story of Abraham & Sarah. There was a significant gap in time between when the promise of a son would come and the actual delivery of the promise. Like us, Abraham and Sarah grew tired of waiting. They saw the frailty of their old age creeping up on them and no doubt felt that the promise would never come. Perhaps they wondered if G-d forgot what He said. It would be quite easy in that position to think “I’m getting up in years and my hearing isn’t great. Maybe I mis-heard.” So, in their state of deferred hope, they forged ahead to manufacture what they believed to be the end result of what G-d promised: a son. Ishmael was conceived through Sarah’s servant so one could say that they got their promise…or did they?
The reason why Ishmael could not be G-d’s promised son to Abraham is because G-d’s promise comes through G-d’s provision. G-d’s results can only be the by-product of G-d’s action and initiative. We can’t create His promise. Ishmael was the byproduct of Abraham and Haagar’s provision not G-d’s promise. Scripture also tells us that G-d’s promises find their yes in connection with Him (2 Cor 1:20) and they bring no trouble with them (Prov 10:22). Anyone who knows the rest of the story knows that the end result of Ishmael’s birth caused trouble. It brought strife and conflict into a happy home. It caused dissension and arguments into Abraham and Sarah’s marriage. It brought about competition, jealousy and power struggles. The downward spiral came about simply because of an unwillingness to wait. G-d’s promise wasn’t just about giving Abraham and Sarah a son. If that was all it was about then Ishmael would have been it. But it was a lesson in trust. It was about teaching them that He was their source, that He was faithful to fulfill His own promises, and that He was a covenant-keeping G-d. He was drafting the contract of an eternal covenant between Himself and Abraham. He was creating a seed of promise that would produce blessing, protection and ongoing provision to the rest of the generations that came from Abraham’s seed. G-d’s promises always have a big picture. Abraham and Sarah did not fully have the big picture to see what G-d had in store for them and their empty arms and hollow womb cried out for a child so Ishmael became the quick fix to numb the pain of their waiting.
I began writing this post with a list of ways that we wait on a daily basis for small, temporal things. But there are much deeper, weightier things each of us are waiting for. We are all waiting and holding on to see the fulfillment of something. We all hold within us the promise and hope of some future fulfillment. Maybe you’re waiting for the return of a wayward prodigal that you long to see step into the Father’s loving arms of forgiveness and redemption. Maybe you are waiting for a spouse that will be your partner and cheerleader in life and will balance you with complementary strengths and gifts. Maybe like Sarah, you wait with an empty womb for a baby you have cried and prayed for and the empty room that will someday be a nursery is a continual reminder of that void. Maybe what you’re waiting for is something completely different but it holds just as deep of a place in your heart and it is continually mentioned in prayer before the Father.
Now, holding whatever that thing is in your mind you can see why Ishmael seemed like a brilliant idea and a quick pain-reliever to Abraham & Sarah. You see, the greatest time of temptation to create an Ishmael in our lives is in a time of waiting. Because of the fact we live in such a instant gratification culture where everything takes minutes not years and productivity is measured by fast results, we translate this same efficiency into the kingdom of G-d and expect Him to move based on a human timetable. This does not make G-d slow. He is outside of time so “fast” and “slow” don’t mean much because He is not confined to operate by either speed. Those are English words we use to define and contrast the movement of things in a time-based world. However, we set up in our minds what we think is slow, fast and on time. When G-d is not immediate in His response, we assume He is not coming.
The children of Israel grew weary of waiting for Moses to come down from Mt. Sinai so they made a golden calf and gave themselves to idolatry. They erected a god that they could worship now. There was immediate delivery, instant gratification. When there is the distraction of a golden calf, there seems to be no felt need to wait for the real visitation. There was such revelry, intoxication and pagan celebration that most of them probably even forgot Moses was coming. They too numbed themselves to the discomfort of waiting. It’s the human story. Every character in the Bible faced the temptation to not wait. Every person had their trust tested and shaken.
We are not exempt dear family. We too live in the continual tension of waiting between the promise and the fulfillment. It is G-d’s waiting room. But it is not a place of idle boredom. It’s where He does some of His best work in our hearts and in our lives. It’s in the journey where He transforms us so that we are ready to handle what He has for us when we arrive at the destination of promise.
Throughout the book of Psalms, David the shepherd, warrior and king composed many, many poems about waiting for the L-rd. In fact, he wrote more about it than any other writer in scripture. He was well acquainted with the seasoning process of waiting. He too experienced the pain of rushing ahead and did not wait for G-d’s hand. It caused the death of Uriah and the death of his firstborn son. That was his breaking point. That is the place where scripture illustrates that he came to the end of his own fight. When the prophet Nathan came to reprove him for murdering Uriah in order to marry Bathsheba, his prayer before G-d was for the Father to create in him a clean heart and steadfast spirit (Ps 91:10).
The purpose for waiting is not only to see the fulfillment of the promise or the answer to the request we have prayed for. There are actual blessings and promises for those who wait. Waiting in itself brings a reward. It is not merely a means to an end:
Adonai takes pleasure and delight in those who wait–Psalm 147:11
Adonai is waiting to show you favor…happy are those who wait for Him–Isaiah 30:18
Those who wait for Him will not be sorry–Isaiah 49:23
Those who wait and hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint–Isaiah 40:31
So how do we wait for Him? How do we posture our hearts in the waiting period between the prayer or promise and His fulfillment? I want to make a very important distinction between passive and active waiting. Passive waiting is similar to the kind of waiting you do in line at the grocery store. You are bored, disinterested, feeling impatient and frustrated, trying to amuse yourself with reading magazine covers at the register and pretending to be amused by the children playing loudly in line in front of you. Passive waiting is simply about forcing your will to endure something uncomfortable or inconvenient. It’s a place of victimized lingering where you kill time until you get what you are waiting for. I don’t want to paint passive waiting out to totally be the bad guy and say that you need to get excited and engaged about every moment you find yourself waiting. Let’s be real here…no one can achieve that. Passive waiting is the kind we do most of the time in our day-to-day lives, sitting in traffic, pumping gasoline into our cars and that’s probably okay in those instances. I’m referring to the kind of waiting we engage in when we are waiting on the Father.
So what is active waiting? Can I be honest? I ask myself this question regularly. I don’t have the complete answer on how to do that perfectly but here are some things I do know to be true about active waiting and have seen the payoff in my own life in the times when I have actively waited for something.
1) Active waiting is hopeful. In Psalm 130:6 the psalmist writes “Everything in me waits for Adonai more than guards on watch wait for morning.” The watchmen anticipate that morning will come and they have hope that they will see the sunrise break over the horizon. Hope deferred makes the heart sick and a sick heart can’t wait without hope to hold on to. Hope is vital to active waiting because it is based in the trust and belief that we will have what we have asked for (1 John 5:15). It is a hope in the Father’s ability and desire to deliver the promise rather than a hope in the promise itself. When we have hope, we can wait with anticipation and eagerness. Going back to the example I used above of waiting for a spouse…the hope must be placed in the Father–He is the focus. If the hope is only placed in finding a spouse, an “Ishmael” will be the result. Abraham & Sarah had the hope for a son but they did not place their hope in the Father’s ability and desire to be the one who gave them that son so they got the son on their own terms. Our hope has to be in the Father and in the fact that he knows our heart. He knows what we need to thrive, grow and mature and He knows what needs to be developed in us in order fulfill the plan He has for our lives. So ultimately He alone knows who will be the best partner for us because He knows how the two of us fit together into His big picture.
2) Active waiting requires preparation. It requires getting ready for what’s coming. The line from the movie Field of Dreams comes to mind: “If you build it, he will come.” There is an element of truth to that statement because over and over scripture tells us the steps we are to take in times of waiting. Look at the parable of the talents. (Matt 25:14) Three men were given talents and they were praised or punished based upon how they managed those talents while waiting for their master to return. It’s a test about active waiting. There was a task, a responsibility and a result expected of those men while they were in a time of waiting. Two actively waited for the master and invested what was in their hands and were able to bring back to the master a return on his investment. One man waited passively and buried what he was given and because he did not actively wait and continue with the task given when the master went away, he lost everything. Recall the story of Esther. Before she became queen, she had to go through a year long “spa” of beauty treatments to prepare her to go before the king. There was a long waiting period full of intense preparation…of both of her physical beauty as well as an internal preparation of her heart. Look also at the parable of the 10 bridesmaids who were waiting for the groom’s arrival so they could go out and meet him on the way to the wedding feast. (Matt 25:1-12) Five were wise in their time of waiting and acquired oil and filled their lamps. Five squandered the time of waiting and ignored the need for preparation. When the cry rang out that the bridegroom was coming, their last minute scramble to acquire oil for their lamps resulted in them missing out on the wedding altogether…and all 10 bridesmaids were waiting the same amount of time for the same wedding. It’s not about who waited longest…it’s about what they did while they were waiting.
3) Active waiting comes from a place of rest–not impatience. This is not a fingernail drumming kind of waiting. Active waiting is born out of a heart at rest, a heart at peace. It’s not a peace based on the circumstances but rather a resting in the faithfulness of G-d and knowing how big the hands are that hold you. Active waiting is about resting in contentment because you have confidence in the One who created the universe and knit you together in your mother’s womb. It’s a place of resting in His character rather than your comfort. How does one do that? It’s simply a declaration from your heart to His that you trust Him to take care of you, provide for your needs and answer your requests and petitions. It’s hanging your life on Him. He is your source…the One from whom your waiting heart draws all that it needs (2 Peter 1:3).
4) Active waiting comes out of a place of gratitude. When you are actively waiting for the fulfillment of something, it’s important to not lose sight of the things you are grateful for in the here and right now. Remember the promises He has already fulfilled. Recount and tell aloud of His wondrous works! Deut 32:4 says “He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.” Psalm 66:5 says “Come and see what God has done, how awesome his works in man’s behalf!” and Psalm 111:7 says “The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy.” Set your heart to thank Him for what He has already done which demonstrates His character, proves his track record and displays His ability to fulfill what He promised He will do.
Whatever prayer or promise that is on your heart which you are diligently seeking and asking the Father for, I pray that He responds to your earnest and sincere prayers and in His perfect timing and gives you the desires of your heart as you continue to acknowledge Him and see His face.
Take Action: Reflect on some times in your own life where you have seen the value and reward of waiting. List them in a journal if it helps to make it visual. Also consider circumstances or specific situations when you have numbed the pain of waiting and forged ahead of G-d’s timing and felt the compounded pain of creating an “Ishmael” rather than waiting for the promise or answer from the L-rd. In what additional ways can you practice “active waiting” for something you’ve prayed for or are waiting for currently?
(I would like to extend a special thank you to my mother who is a beautiful example of how to wait with grace for the fulfillment of promises. Conversations with her are very much the inspiration behind writing this post.)
