Impatiently Waiting

Have you ever packed a lunch and just couldn’t wait to delve into it? I related to that the other day as my granddaughters helped pack a lunch for a combine ride. They couldn’t wait till lunch time to dig into it, in fact I barely got the machine started. I chuckled as I have done the same thing many times and then rummaged through an empty cooler at noon. Why didn’t I wait! I might be hard pressed to think this is hereditary, but on the other hand; I have trouble waiting for a traffic light to change, waiting in a checkout line, or waiting for my phone to send a text message. In our fast-paced world, waiting becomes an irritating inconvenience.

Wait For The Lord

Do I have this same impatient nature when waiting for God? How often do we ask God for something and expect a rapid reply? Sometimes the desires of our heart take time. We know God is working in our life even though He appears to be silent, but we yearn for visible results. Waiting sometimes become one of God’s favorite tools to get our attention, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord,” Psalm 27:14.

Paging through the Bible we can recall many instances where waiting and patience endured. Noah waited for rain. Sarah waited to be with child. Joseph waited in prison. Moses waited in the wilderness. Daniel, Job, Paul, I could go on, but I can’t seem to wait two more hours to eat my lunch or wait a few extra minutes in line. How do you handle waiting? We wait for the Lord to help us through a difficult circumstance and our faith is often tested in those long and painful moments in our life when patient endurance is called upon – as we trustingly wait for the Lord to act.

In Him I Trust

We humbly pray and wait, questioning if we will be strong enough to accept the answer we get or when the answer might come. However, “I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in His Word I put my hope”, Psalms 130:5. When we take God at His Word and trust Him unquestioningly, despite our inpatient nature during stressful circumstances, it beckons us to be comforted by His presence and thus enabled from within to wait for Him. I’m not saying I won’t still eat my lunch before due time, but hopefully when I do, it will remind me of the small lessons given to me along the way that spiritual maturity is in the ability to wait. God has plans in store for us and we can place our trust in him for the endurance we need to WAIT, on the LORD.

Dear God, thank you for your endless patience with me especially during my impatient moments. I long to trust You with my whole life, in the doing and in the waiting. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.