Richard Hendrix says: “Second only to suffering, waiting may be the greatest teacher and trainer in godliness, maturity and genuine spirituality most of us ever encounter.”
I don’t like waiting.
– I don’t like waiting in traffic.
– I don’t like waiting at lights
– I don’t like waiting in line…
I just don’t like waiting!
But a lot of life is like this.
Think about raising children. Some people see raising their children as what their lives are all about; the only thing their lives are all about. They sum up the whole of their life in terms of that time when their family was all together.
We had four children:
– The first ten years we were “having” them
– The next ten years we were all together
– The next ten years they were leaving.
We only had ten years (or, thereabouts) when we were all together as a family.
So, if you look back on your life and see it summed up in the time when you had your whole family together – then you are going to miss out on a huge portion of life.
So too, if we discount “waiting” times in our lives as though they don’t really count, if only what counts is what’s at the end of the waiting:
– getting married,
– a child being born after nine months,
– taking that holiday,
– getting the house finished…
…if only what is at the end counts, you are going to miss out on a whole lot of life.
Waiting is not the “space in between” the rest of your real life.
Waiting is an important part of your “real life”.
Rather than seeing “waiting” as just “white space”, wasted time – use it as valuable time well spent.
The same as “white space” in a talk gives the audience time to reflect on what you are saying, so white space in life is valuable as time for reflection.
To be always achieving, to be always at it – there is no time to reflect, to think, to assess where you have come from, and where you are going to – is like a talk without white space.
Life without white space becomes a meaningless garble.
“Waiting” is not a matter of “filling in time.”
Or, “marking time.” Or, “wasted time.”
Waiting is as much a part of life as achieving is.
Without the waiting, the achieving loses its meaning.
The lives of God’s saints, have always been mostly taken up with “waiting”.
Most of (what we perceive to be) their most significant life’s work was packed into a small period of their life.
Paul
When I was in Sunday School (which was some time ago now), every few years you would go through Acts; and, in particular, the life of the apostle Paul.
Back then, learning of some new, exciting adventure in Paul’s life each week, you got the impression that Paul himself was into a new, exciting adventure each week.
But when you actually put it all together, you get a different picture:
Paul was probably in his early 30’s when he was converted on the road to Damascus.
At that time, God told him: “I have a special plan for you. I have chosen you to be the apostle to the Gentiles.”
But instead God sends him off into solitary confinement in Arabia for three years.
Then it is back to Damascus and on to Jerusalem briefly, before leaving for Tarsus where he ministers for some years.
There Barnabas eventually finds him, and persuades him to help out in Antioch – where he stays, again, for some years.
All the while, no mission to the Gentiles.
Eventually, maybe 12 years after his conversion, he finally embarks on his “life’s purpose”.
The Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” (Acts 13:2)
For the next ten years, he embarks on three missionary journeys, interspersed with time “on furlough” back in Antioch.
Then he is imprisoned in Caesarea for two or more years, before enduring a prolonged and perilous voyage to Rome. There he is again incarcerated – for another two or more years.
Eventually (we think) he is released; only to be arrested not long after, in prison again.
Then executed, probably in his mid 60’s.
What did Paul expect as a young man, in his 30s, when God told him: “I have a special plan for you. I have chosen you to be the apostle to the Gentiles”?
Maybe the next 40 or 50 years engaged in exciting missionary work, sweeping all before the inexorable advance of the gospel?
But, instead – he gets just ten years!
Three missionary journeys in ten years.
What were those ten years like?
In labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. Five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness…”
. (2 Cor 11:23-27 – all this before the end of his 3rd Missionary Journey!)
When we think of Paul, we focus on those three missionary journeys.
This ten year period is portrayed as the most productive period of Paul’s life.
The rest of the time was spent in “waiting”.
He did a lot of waiting!
But it would be a mistake to think that those “waiting” years were “wasted” years”.
They weren’t! In their own way they were very productive years.
Other Examples
NOAH’S life’s work was to preserve life in an ark.
He waited 480 years before he began to build that ark; this took 120 years.
He spent a year or more in the ark.
Then for 350 years he disappears from history – apart from discovering how to make wine and getting drunk and naked.
Then he dies !
A lot of waiting.
But it was not “wasted” (apart from when he got “wasted” through his stupid use of alcohol).
ABRAHAM left Haran at age 75, and God promised him a son.
Abraham waited on the Lord.
But ten years passed and he decided he had had enough of waiting: Ishmael comes along.
Still, God keeps him waiting another 14 years; then renews His promise.
Eventually, 25 years after the initial promise, Isaac is born.
Abraham lives another 75 years – then dies.
But he died, having learnt one of the most valuable lessons in life: He had learnt to wait.
He died knowing that he “waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” (Heb 11:10)
MOSES waited 40 years to get on with the job he was destined for.
He too grew tired of waiting; he tried to precipitate matters: “Seeing one of [his countrymen] suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed, and struck down the Egyptian. For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand. But they did not understand…” (Acts 7:24-25)
So, for another 40 years he learns to wait, in the desert minding sheep.
Then, at last, he gets the job he was born for: to lead Israel out of bondage to the Promised Land.
A journey that should’ve taken about a year.
But no ! Another 40 years of… waiting !
DAVID had to wait something like ten years after he was anointed as king, before he eventually took the throne.
JESUS came to this earth for one great purpose: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)
For 30 years He waited – before He commenced His public ministry.
For just three years He ministered.
Then, in 6 hours upon the cross He fulfilled His great purpose: He “gave His life a ransom for many.”
The Benefits of “Waiting”
1) We renew our relationship with the Lord
The Psalms have a lot to say about “waiting”.
I looked up every occurrence of “waiting” in the Psalms.
Apart from those references that speak of the wicked “lying in wait”, every reference in the Psalms (there are 22 of them) speaks of “waiting” in terms of “waiting on the Lord”.
That should tell us something:
Times of waiting in your life are there for a purpose.
They are times in which to renew your relationship with the Lord.
2) The Lord renews our strength
When our waiting is not just waiting, but waiting “on the Lord” – then the Lord comes to us with resources beyond what we normally have.
He renews our strength.
He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall,
But those who wait on the Lord:
– Shall renew their strength;
– They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
– They shall run and not be weary,
– They shall walk and not faint.”
. (Isa 40:29-31)
3) The Lord equips us for the task ahead
Often enough, times of “waiting” prepare us for the times of intense busyness:
Think of Paul waiting all those years, before ten years of intense missionary work and letter writing.
Or Moses: 40 years in Egypt, where he “was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds.” (Acts 7:22)
Then 40 years in the desert, where he learned to “lead sheep”, and where he learned about this God that he was going to have to lean upon in the years ahead.
Only then, to lead two million Israelites through that same desert, to the Promised Land.
And David: just a boy, a teenager – he wasn’t ready to rule.
But, after ten years fleeing from Saul, learning the art of warfare, learning how to relate to people – then he was ready to take the throne to lead God’s people.
Even Jesus had to wait … and suffer!
“Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.” (Heb 5:8)
What does waiting mean ?
1) Waiting does not mean doing nothing
If we are renewing our relationship with the Lord, if the Lord is renewing our strength, if the Lord is equipping us for the task ahead… we won’t be doing nothing.
“Waiting” is an active exercise.
It is not about passively doing nothing.
At very least, it is actively learning to depend upon God.
Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with his mother;
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
. (Psalm 131:2)
2) Waiting does mean learning to hope
Despair is one of Satan’s most powerful tools. If he can get us to despair, we become like putty in his hands – he can mould us then any way he likes.
Part of God’s training of us is to teach us to hope, rather than despair.
A mark of maturity is to learn to hope, when tempted to despair.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I do hope.
My soul waits for the Lord. (Psalm 130:5-6)
How does God teach us this?
Not through times of activity, times of success.
But, through times of waiting.
This is learning to wait, even through “tribulation”, in “hope that does not disappoint”. (Rom 5:5)
3) Waiting does mean growing anticipation
We don’t always know how God is going to work at the end of a time of waiting.
But we do know He is going to work in the end!
We anticipate that.
The time of waiting will pass – yes, even in this life!
Unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living… […the Psalmist is unable to finish his sentence:
. the result is too unbearable to contemplate…]
Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the Lord!
. (Psalm 27:13-14)
And especially we wait – for how it will all end.
For, “our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Phil 3:21)
A useful study guide that has helped me is Stephen and Jacalyn Eyre’s “Waiting on the Lord” (in the Spiritual Encounter Guides series)