THE WORTHINESS OF WAITING

Galatians 5:5 “But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive everything promised to us who are right with God through faith.”

Waiting. It seems sometimes that all we do in life is wait. We wait in line at the market; We wait at the traffic light; We wait for the Advil to take effect; We wait for the commercial to be over; We wait for the shower to get warm; We wait for financing to come through; We wait to be heard; We wait for life to turn around; We wait for our son or daughter to get serious about life; We wait for the change...the change we just know is coming. We wait, we wait, and we wait.

There are times when our waiting can be absolutely excruciating and we can hardly stand to wait another minute. I was in traffic the other day, and I was stuck in the middle lane behind this green Subaru wagon, you know, the ones with all the bumper stickers stacked up on the back window - and this guy is going about 20 miles an hour. Every now and then he speeds up to about 30 and then quickly drops back to 20. At one point the guy just stops his car in the middle lane. I look in my rearview mirror and I have cars stacked up in my lane behind me and the lanes on each side of me are full of vehicles. I try to merge left. I try to merge right. I’m stuck. I just had to wait, and as it turns out, the guy in front of me was just talking on the phone.

But, there are also times when we wait, and time just seems to slip away, it escapes us, and we wonder, “How did things end so fast?” It seems like yesterday that I graduated college, that I was married, that my oldest child was born. I wonder where the time has gone.

Sometimes, waiting isn’t such a bad thing. Sometimes, waiting is a gift from God. We wait on God. God makes us wait. We see the world racing by us. God sees this as essential to our spiritual life. What is it with God and all this waiting? Doesn’t it seem that God is always making people wait? Why wait? God is fully in control, why can’t God make things happen now? Why can’t Jesus snap his fingers and “ta da” - the answer comes? Why wait? Because waiting is more about Jesus than it is about us. In fact, when I give my life over to Jesus Christ, my life is no longer about me; it is now about Jesus Christ - every single aspect. These events, these things that happen in my life, are they about me, or are they really about the one who I have promised my life to, Jesus Christ. Let us embrace the reality that we all have lives that are to have every aspect committed to Jesus Christ.

When we wait with eager anticipation and reliance upon God, he is sure to bless us with the fulfillment of every promise and teach us something along the way.