Waiting. We spend a great deal of time waiting. We wait in lines, we wait at traffic lights, we wait in doctors’ offices. We wait for things to happen. We wait for things to change. We wait for healing to come. We wait for decisions to be made. We wait.
Often our waiting is out of our control. We have no choice but to wait. Often our tendency is to fight the waiting because waiting is difficult.
It is easy to get focused on the thing for which we are waiting, even when we cannot control it. Sometimes it feels as if there is a jury out deliberating and we have no idea which way things are leaning, or how long it will be before we hear the verdict.
The Bible talks about how even creation waits. Paul describes it in Romans this way: “The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead.” (Romans 8:18-21 MSG)
He goes on to compare the waiting to a pregnancy. “That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.” (Romans 8:22-25 MSG)
“We are enlarged in the waiting…” I suppose that the waiting can be a good thing. Our expectancy increases while we wait. If everything came quickly and easily, how much would we appreciate it? How much would we grow?
In Hannah Hurnard’s classic allegory, “Hinds’ Feet on High Places,” there is a point while on the journey to the High Places, the main character, Much-Afraid, is led down a path that seems to contradict the journey she is on with the Shepherd. The promise is that he will take her to the High Places, but this path before them leads away from them.
The words the Shepherd spoke to her were profound. He said, “No, it is not a contradiction, only a postponement for the best to become possible.” (1)
He is God and we are not. In our finite and impatient minds, we often shoot for instant gratification, but what if in the waiting, we are changed for the better? What if in the waiting our Shepherd is only postponing things just a bit so that His best becomes possible?
Waiting is often difficult. We can embrace it with hope, or we can fight it. The promise however is this, “The moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” (Romans 8:26-28 MSG)
1) Hannah Hurnard, “Hinds’ Feet on High Places,” Living Books, Tyndale House, 1975, Page 82.
