Patience is NOT one of my virtues. Yet it seems as I grow older, God requires more instruction involving patience. Once again, I sit in his school of waiting.
When we wait, our first question is “When?” When will the answers come? How much longer do I need to wait?
Is there a deeper purpose than even the waiting itself — a reasoning God wants me to grasp, a circumstance someone else needs to piece together, something that affects both of us?
On a larger scale than just my small life, when will our communities learn that diversity is a strength? We can add to each other’s lives by embracing our differences as much as we love our commonalities. But when?
The 36-hour day team-tags for caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients. The body refuses to die even as the brain deteriorates. When will release come?
The only way to end the Alzheimer’s journey is to hold the hand of a loved one as s/he is ushered into eternity.
Writers wait to hear from publishers who hold their words hostage within committee meetings. The words scream to be heard and passed on. When?
In their workbook, Living into the Answers, authors Isenhower and Todd write, “If we leave ourselves open to God’s leading, even in the midst of asking the questions, often God sends us into areas we have not considered.”
New areas we have not previously considered or possibly — new spiritual havens where we learn to reframe our questions.
How can we find hope while we wait? How can we best live in our waiting rooms without giving way to the frustrations of impatience?
What did it feel like in the 600-year silence between the Old and New Testaments? For centuries, one decade after another, the people waited for their Messiah.
Generations died out. Saints did not receive the promise, yet somehow hope lived on. Grandfathers continued to share the stories of a miracle-working God — even in the silence.
Mothers tucked their children into beds and whispered, “Maybe tomorrow Messiah will come.”
Yet their tomorrows stretched into the next year and the next.
When Jesus DID come, he was so radical and so unlike the Messiah they expected, they did not recognize the wait was finally over. Instead of rejoicing, they rejected him and killed him. They refused the truth.
As I wait for my limbo land to end, I wonder … has it come and gone, passed me by? Did I somehow miss the answer? If so, how do I retrieve it?
Maybe the eternal one who longs for us to trust him plants the answers in the everyday-ness of life, then waits for us to locate him.
Perhaps our questions are wrapped in the discontent of our days. We cannot truly find the resolve because God is not controlled by time.
Yet as we wait, he graciously holds us in the palm of his mighty and patient hands.
Instead of yearning for a change, maybe we need to just accept today. To find joy in whatever positives surround us.
Then as we cry out for a deeper intimacy with the divine one, he will produce the answers within.
©2021 RJ Thesman – All Rights Reserved
Check out this excerpt from Hope Shines, available on Amazon and also in Large Print.
Thanks
You’re welcome!
Gardening has been a spiritual journey of discovering the beauty in waiting for me. Its takes about three months for an African violet leaf to root and grow a new plant. I had to learn to trust during that long 3 month wait that new growth was coming. So much anxiety in the wait. And anticipation. Thanks for your post!
Yes, it’s always interesting what is happening to the root system – in plants and in our souls. Thanks for the comment.