"WAIT"

It seems as if I am being forced to wait these days. Waiting to feel deep connections, waiting for relationships, waiting to change, and most recently waiting for a job to materialize. For a long time I have thought that the waiting was something bad but recently I have been asking if it might not be a gift from God.

Two weeks ago in church Kent spoke out of Obadiah. The question that stuck in my head was, "Are we willing to be faithful and wait?" As I was looking back over the notes I had written my Bible fell open to Isaiah 30. What a great chapter! There was the word "wait" again in verse 18. "Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!"

It struck me this morning that perhaps my waiting is a gift from God. I wonder how this waiting might impact the Advent season of waiting. Waiting doesn't really feel much like a gift to me. What is becoming more obvious to me though is that I almost need to choose to receive it as a gift rather than see it as some curse. I think that is the first step in what it looks like for me to be faithful and wait?

The other thing that struck me this morning was that there appears to be two different types of waiting: 1) Quiet waiting - "Be still and know I am God." 2) Active waiting - "Be strong and take heart." But both are steeped in our hope for God.