Wait

Reprinted from St. Andrew’s Church COVID-19 Devotional Series.  April 24, 2020.

My cousin, Martha, who is 5 years younger than I am, recently posted a sweet photo of us in her backyard.  We are wearing matching dresses and our expressions in the picture perfectly reveal our personalities.  She is always up for anything, loves mischief, and is so carefree and daring.  I, on the other hand, tend toward shyness, caution, and living in my head.  She calls me her first friend and she is right:  We were the perfect team.  

One of the funniest ways we differed as kids is in how we approached Christmas.  Martha could (and still can) sniff out a hiding place for a gift faster than any pack of bloodhounds.  And she was often known to open the wrapped presents that she discovered and then re-wrap them in time for Christmas morning.  I, on the other hand, love a surprise.  I remember the first time I discovered (by accident) my first stereo hidden in the laundry room.  It felt to me like Christmas had been ruined, that my looooong wait for Christmas morning had no joyful finish line.  For Martha, the discovery enhanced the joy.  For me, the surprise did.  And, I think that, even though we responded to Christmas morning differently – our behavior illustrates a response to a common human struggle – Tom Petty said it best:  “The waiting is the hardest part.”  

The Bible is full of commandments to wait.  Seriously, just do a word search of your on-line Bible for the word, “wait.”  Endless verses appear.    And, in my experience, people have a myriad of different approaches to waiting.  Some, like Martha, love to investigate the hidden gifts that are in store for them at the end of the waiting.  Some, like me, are filled with joy at the wonder of what God has in store.  No matter where you land on this spectrum, waiting for the Lord’s timing is a part of the life of the believer. 

I think we all can agree that we are experiencing a collective time of waiting.   And so I thought it might be helpful to remind ourselves of some of the core truths that the Lord has given us to help us ride out the storm.

• Truth 1:   God is good.  Friends, no matter what difficulties we are experiencing, the truth is that our God is good.  For us, this truth has to be the period at the end of every sentence.  Life is hard, but God is good.  Fear is knocking on the door, but God is good.   Even when we can’t feel it, God is good.  
• Truth 2:  God is at work.  Even a cursory knowledge of the Bible shows us that God wastes nothing.  This waiting is planting in us seeds that will be harvested later.  He neither sleeps nor slumbers – he is always working.  And he is not working from afar, which brings us to the next truth:
• Truth 3:  God is with us.    Friends, when I was too sick from chemo to get out of bed, I knew this truth – and, I have to say, it made me mad.  I couldn’t get my head around the idea that God was with me and yet my family and I were suffering so much.   But, guess what – God does not run from our anger or our questions or our fear.    He stays. 
• Truth 4:  God’s will will be done.  We serve the God of the universe.  He does not change, He is not surprised, He will accomplish his purposes.  Any questions about what this will look like?  See Truth 1.

Friends, none of us have the answers right now.  Whether you are someone who wants to open the present now or whether you are content to wait and be surprised.  But, I pray that as we walk through this together, we can support each other and look together to our good, good Father.  And wait.

In Him,

Sally