Redefining Waiting
The Problem of Waiting
We live in a broken world in which reality has been twisted into something it was never meant to be in the beginning. Layer global brokenness on top of a culture mired in the muck of instant gratification, entitlement and consumerism, and we’re left with quite a problem. Waiting has become something that we don’t embrace, but rather push against. Waiting is an ugly word.
Waiting well is hard. It's painful. And yet we can choose to access tremendous hope in the waiting. It’s possible for us to learn to wait well. We can champion waiting even when it chafes.
We can understand that waiting not only requires hope, but waiting also cultivates hope.
Romans 5:3 teaches us that suffering leads us to perseverance and to character and, ultimately, to hope, which will never shame us and will never disappoint us. There is a promise and a purpose in the painful process of waiting, which means we can learn to wait well.
The Purpose of Waiting
Success in almost any endeavor hinges on identifying and understanding the purpose. With a purpose, we can survive the process. With a purpose, the wait is worth it.
As we look back on the story of the Israelites, we can draw so many parallels to our own story arcs. The Israelites were bound by long eras of captivity and slavery, and wandered for four decades in the wilderness. As one of our favorite sayings goes, “It took them forty days to get out of Egypt, but it took forty years to get the Egypt out of them.” That insight reveals truths about our own season of waiting. Certain wounds and strongholds in our lives may only be unearthed and healed with the God-ordained passage of time.
Waiting can be especially hard when we know we’ve been called to good, important work. We think of the agonizingly long stretch of time between when David was anointed as shepherd by and appointed as king. The waiting can create surface area for doubt.
We’re learning to see waiting not as a reason for doubting a calling or feeling forgotten by God, but rather as an opportunity for refinement that will help equips us for our appointments.
Other times, waiting is not about us at all. In a way we can never fully understand, we play a role in the wide arc of God’s global redemption story. Maybe the purpose of our waiting is about someone else’s story entirely.
The Promise of Waiting
Over and over, Scripture teaches us about what it means to wait well. Isaiah 30:18 says, “Blessed are those who wait.” Isaiah 44:1 tells us those who wait will have their strength renewed. Hebrews 12 calls us to persevere and “run with endurance the race marked before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” Press on, press in, and choose to see yourself as blessed because of the waiting.
We must correctly define blessing to see ourselves as blessed. To be truly blessed in the wait is to receive more of God by having the opportunity to continually re-center and refocus our gaze back on Him, even when our desires are not coming to fruition.
Suddenly, what was once a thorn becomes the very thing that tethers our attention to the Father.
Paul writes about learning in and from the waiting, no matter what was going on around him. In the book of Philippians he expounds on the process of cultivating contentment through the knowledge that, ultimately, Christ would provide his truest needs. This supernatural contentment wasn’t automatic or inherent; rather, his contentment was hard-won through taking every though captive. He put in the work and claimed the promise that Christ would supply what he needed to do the work laid before him.
One day we won't need hope anymore. We won't have to wait anymore.
As Revelation says, “Every tear will be wiped away from our eyes and there will be no night.” Everything that we've longed for will come to pass. When we are face to face with the Living Hope of Jesus Christ, suddenly we’ll lack nothing. We’ll be perfectly adequate and there will be nothing to wait for anymore.
In the meantime, let’s live out this future promise with a present hope. Let’s use the expanse of waiting to become bigger, wider vessels of hope.
