It is hard to not believe that when you are waiting you are doing nothing. In Beckett’s well-known play, Waiting for Godot, the entire plot revolves around 2 characters endlessly devising things to do while they wait.
Those of us currently in Sydney’s harshest lockdown to date can’t travel beyond 10 km for essential services and are being urged to wait inside our residences until COVID numbers fall. Is the waiting game causing us to feel impatient?
This impatience with our lives being static can move into impatience with God when He is seen as moving too slowly in our lives. Repeatedly in the Bible we asked to be still and wait for God to act (eg Ex. 14:13, Psa. 46:10, Psa. 62:1,5).
It is encouraging to read: “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. 40:31). Those who wait on God get a fresh strength and will be energised to walk and they won’t lag behind.
In the midst of troubling times, stand still and master the art of waiting for God knowing that He is for us and with us, working out His perfect plans and purposes in our lives. Read His words each morning and spend 5 minutes just being still and wait on God to speak to you through His words.
We can be like David and remind ourselves, “Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!"(Psa. 27:14).
We are on the journey and these words are a paraphrase in contemporary language of the joy that awaits us when we wait for God.
“So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever” (2 Cor. 4:16-18 MSG).