Anyone out there love to wait?  I don’t!  In fact I am a pretty impatient person most of the time.  I don’t like to wait in line, wait at stop lights, and wait for people to get ready or wait for help.  I really don’t enjoy being put on hold and hearing there are five callers ahead of you.  You know what else I don’t like waiting for?  God.  When I pray, I want an answer and I want it now.  Seriously I have never once prayed, God, I really need some help.  How does next month look for you?  No, I pray God I need help and I need it now!

Waiting can be agony at times, especially if you are waiting on something important to you.  During the time of my husband’s unemployment the wait was unbearable at times.  Every time the phone would ring, I would wonder “is this it, is this the call with the job offer, is our wait finally over?”  Following my surgery to remove the skin cancer, we had to wait on the phone call with the pathology report.  Again the wait was very agonizing.  Your mind wonders and wanders and at least for me, I go through many horrible scenarios in my head.  Honestly, most of the time I can’t help but feel like waiting fuels my doubt.  So, I’m forced to asked the question-Why would God make us wait when He knows we are only going to doubt?

Waiting can also be mixed with anticipation.  For example, my family loves to watch the Olympics.  We have been anxiously waiting for them to start.  Or what about the anticipation you feel for a major event?  A family vacation, summer camp, season change or baseball/football season to start?  In these cases the waiting is not necessarily bad, it’s almost exciting.  Here is the thing though, all of these things will come and then go, which leads us right back to the waiting game again.

For those of us that are parents, we wait for many things.  We look forward to our kids being able to walk and talk and use the restroom by themselves.  We look forward to them starting school, being able to ride a bike, driving, and even graduating.  We may even say things like “I can’t wait for school to start again.”  This particular kind of waiting is both exciting and scary.  Then we reach a point where we wish we could just freeze time.  Because the things have been waiting for begin to come a little too quickly.  My youngest is starting her senior year in High School in another week, so this is exactly where I am.

This blog post actually comes out of waiting.  I have been trying all week to come up with an idea. I have started and stopped writing on a couple of different topics.  Interestingly enough, this brings us back to waiting on God.  I was tired of waiting, so I started trying to do it on my own.  I hope that someday I will learn that this doesn’t work.  Anyway, I have been working on a Bible study about fear and during my reading this morning I stumbled on this verse in Psalms 27:14 “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”  I was intrigued by what it meant to “wait for the LORD”.  But I continued on with my original reading plan until the very next verse Psalms 130:4, which talks about fearing God.  But then in verse 5 I read “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in hope word I hope;”  There was that word “wait” again.  At this point it was becoming clear that I needed to learn more about waiting on the LORD.  I discovered or maybe was reminded that there is a lot of waiting in the Bible.  Here are just a few examples:

• Abraham and Sarah waited on a son.
• Moses and his people waited for Pharaoh to let them go.
• Noah and his family waited in the ark.
• The people of Israel waited for a king.
• The disciples were told to wait for a helper-the Holy Spirit.
• Today we wait for the return of Jesus.

One of the commentaries I read said “Waiting on the Lord means trusting in God’s goodness and timing.  God sees things differently than we do.  King David learned to wait on God alone for his needs, discovering the value in patience.”

Waiting is hard.  We are all waiting on something.  Maybe there is value in waiting?  I’m still trying to wrestle that one to the ground.  But it seems that God’s people have a long history of waiting, so there must be a reason for it.  I wonder, for me at least, if it doesn’t have something to do with total and complete dependence on God.  Waiting for His will in His time and trusting it is for the best.  There are times in life when we choose to wait.  And if I think about those times for me, I choose to wait because it’s either the right thing to do or I believe the wait will be worth it.

The question I posed earlier-why does God make us wait when He knows it will make us doubt?  He knows it will be worth it!  It may not always seem like it was worth the wait, but I believe that is where God grows us.  We have to choose, sometimes daily and ask ourselves: do I really trust God in all things, including His provisions and timing?  As I said I’m still trying to figure this out, and honestly it’s a struggle at times.  But there is no doubt that God grows me more through my struggles and questions than during the easy times.

What are you waiting for?  Is there something God is trying to tell you or show you during your wait?  What value or benefit is there during your time of waiting?  I encourage you to wrestle with these questions, ask God for guidance and spend time in His word listening to His direction.