==
What was the last thing you waited for?
==
An email? A text? A facebook post? Your food? What was it?
==
For me, it was a text. My answer should be more like... Easter. Lent should have taken me through this waiting period until Christ had risen. That's what Advent is about too. Waiting for Christ to come into the world. 40 days. 25 days. NOT 2 minutes. an hour. We are a culture of busy-ness and therefore a culture of instant gratification. We can't stand if someone doesn't text us back within a few minutes... or if they don't respond to our post on their wall within a day. When we think of technology we don't think of landline phones or morse code machines, although at some point they too were technology beyond belief. Today we are up against the trendy cell phone, too many deadlines, and the Concord Jet. Things that come and move fast. "If we have a complaint about technology today, it is that we are unable to keep up with it. We are impatient to discover more; we resent having to wait" (25).
==
We have more information on the Internet than ever. We sit in our dorm rooms waiting for webpages to load and instead of being patient we yell at the computer like its going to help. We don't allow things to gestate. Perhaps in that moment we are waiting for the Wikipedia page to load, we could be thinking about whatever it is we're looking up and think of an answer. Instead of spending the time looking for and through a dictionary, all I have to do is press my dashboard button and type the word. I don't even have to press 'enter'... it comes up automatically.
==
We can't expect instant answers to complex questions. We can't expect love after first impressions. We can't expect a child to be born before nine months. Pregnancy may be the only symbol of waiting in our culture today. That waiting time is important to life.
==
WWJD? Wait. The Pslams are full of waiting and Jesus was full of waiting (31).
"waiting for three days between hearing the news of Lazarus's death and going to the grave"
"waiting, wasting time at a well with a woman who wasn't of his own race or class"
"waiting in the garden until the time of arrest and telling his disciples to watch and pray"
"waiting for three days in the tomb before resurrecting into life"
Waiting is important. countercultural. a spiritual discipline.
==
Instant decisions can be bad decisions. If you go to the doctor after having a headache for a few days, the doctor doesn't instantly diagnose a brain tumor. We are people who act before we think. We need to learn how to be slow to speak.
==
Waiting allows us to develop relationships. If we based every relationship on first impressions, we could wind up out of luck and out of friends. "Off-putting first impressions give way to a deeper appreciation" (32).
==
Waiting is a must in order to have real intimacy. This goes for human relationships and divine relationships. We wouldn't tell a stranger everything about us. "Why then should we expect God to reveal to us what is deep, or imagine that by some quick fix formula we can develop a lasting intimacy with our Maker?" (33). We have pastors for any given length of time because if they revealed all they knew to us in the first month, we wouldn't need them anymore. Our pastors are there to help us on our journeys by revealing to us week after week something new.
==
Lastly, waiting is a sign of love. We wait for hours for the people we love. But the plumber who said he would come between 9a and 4p--we have no patience. Why is that?
==
If we truly love God... we must be willing to wait.
"We must wait on God... on God's word... with God's people... for the right time" (34).
==
God won't give us instant answers. We need to wait. Pray fervently and continually. Give thanks for that relationship and then wait. If we love God we will wait for an answer. God isn't the plumber or the tv repair guy. God is someone with whom we are intimate because God knows every detail of our lives. We must wait to discover all that God has to offer for our lives. We must realize that God's transformation in our lives comes continually. Waiting is an important part of who we are as children of God.
==
What are you waiting for? How are you waiting?
No comments:
Post a Comment