Today I’m waiting. Waiting is something we all do. It’s part of life.
Waiting can be exciting. Graduates wait to hear their names called. A new mom waits for the birth of her child. Friends wait to spend a weekend catching up.
Waiting can also be agonizing. A patient waits for relief from chronic pain. An applicant waits to hear about a job interview. A dad waits to hear the results of his medical tests. A family waits to hear their loved one’s prognosis.
As I write this, I have several “unknowns” that I’m waiting for. I expect to know more soon but, for now, I’m waiting. Maybe you’re there, too, or have been recently. Waiting is hard work. I know many patient people, but I don’t know anyone who likes to wait. I guess that’s why it has been said that waiting is the hardest work of hope. Even musician Tom Petty said, “The waiting is the hardest part.”
Fear of the unknown has a way of playing with our minds in the waiting and can cause us to feel uncertain, doubtful, and stressed. Events that are outside of our control can create a sense of panic and dread of the unknown. Our minds have a harmful tendency to fill in the blanks of what is not yet known.
The circumstances in our waiting can conspire to pressure us to action so that we might gain a false sense of control. If we lean into self-reliance, we feel as though there’s something we need to do to prevent the waiting, to possibly hurry the process along.
Knowing that God will uphold us alleviates our fear of the unknown. God wants us to be filled with hope and trust in him, not fear, and certainly not ourselves.
As my recent circumstances began to pile up, it became a triage of sorts with emergent needs addressed, and others queued according to urgency. Not unlike a hospital waiting room, we visitors to the waiting room may not know how to wait. Some wait staring aimlessly at the muted talk show on the TV. Others leaf through a magazine from a nearby table. Many wait fidgeting with their phones.
Waiting is not fun but it’s also not the time to flounder. God is sovereign and merciful. Waiting has a purpose. May we be people who turn to God in our waiting to be sustained by his mercy and his love.
Weeks ago, a dear sister sent me a text to say she was praying for me from Lamentations 3:21-25, noting that this “sliver of hope appears in chapter 3 among the wreckage.” As I wait, I am finding this familiar passage to be instructive, defining, and stretching.
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
This waiting room I’m in currently is not the way TO the next thing in life. This waiting IS the next thing in life. I have prayed for years from verses 21-24 of Lamentations. For such a time as this waiting, verse 25 holds the key, “The Lord is good to those who WAIT for him, to the soul who seeks him.” This statement of faith stands strong in the middle of Jeremiah’s seemingly hopeless situation and in mine too. As I wait, my hope is in the Lord.
No matter the outcome of our waiting room experience, when we wait with our focus on the Lord, we have all we need. Jesus alone forgives, heals, redeems, crowns, and satisfies us. As Corrie Ten Boom, the Holocaust survivor, said, “When Jesus is all you have…Jesus is all you need.”