Waiting is something that we all have to do at one time or another. How we handle it is up to us.
“You can get so confused that you’ll start into race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place. The Waiting Place….for people just waiting.” Dr. Seuss
In his book , Oh the Places You’ll Go!” Dr. Seuss describes the place where everyone is waiting on everything from a phone call, to a second chance, to a better break, to a wig with curls. We’ve all been there haven’t we?
We have had to wait to hear back from a job interview or medical test results. Depending on what we are waiting for, the wait can be excruciating. When we get some questionable medical news for example, we can have ourselves dead and buried in our own minds before our doctor has even read the scan. When we are forced to wait on something we deem life changing, we allow our imaginations to run wild.
There are other times when our period of waiting might not feel so urgent, but we get very weary of waiting just the same. There have definitely been times in my life when I desperately wanted a burning bush answer from God. I wanted Him to get on a megaphone and tell me exactly what to do. Should I stay? Should I go? Is now the time to make a move?
I often find myself very frustrated when I am in one of those uncertain situations and my constant requests for direction seem to be met with silence. I mean, doesn’t God want me to do His will? Is He not listening? Why won’t He tell me what to do?
Those are times when I really have to spend some quiet time in prayer and seek the Holy Spirit which provides us with patience and peace. God is always listening. Knowing that, is part of faith. He is also always working and always has a plan.
This is also a time when knowing scripture can give us hope. Knowing truths, like God’s ways are different from ours, and that there’s a time for everything, can be very comforting. Knowing there were people in the Bible like Joseph, who had to go through terrible hardship and wait for years, before God used him to save all of Israel, provides a certain amount of peace. God was at work through that entire ordeal.
There’s a certain amount of waiting that we all have to do on this side of eternity. The question we have to ask ourselves is are we willing to trust and be patient or are we going to run off half-cocked? If we know that God has our situation completely in His control, do we really have anything to fear? Should we allow ourselves to give into anger and frustration or are we willing to lean into His embrace as we confidently know as His children, “If God is for us who can be against us?”
I am painfully aware that this mindset is much easier said than done, but I think it’s one worth pursuing. Care to join me?
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂