Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. Psalm 27:14
It seems like we’re doing a lot of waiting lately. Waiting for normal to return, waiting to find out about the job, waiting for our friend or family member to get well, waiting for groceries, waiting for the kids to settle down or for someone to call us because we’re lonely. Waiting. It’s a difficult place to be, usually filled with unpleasant emotional mixes of anxiety, stress, boredom, frustration, anger, grief…
I’ve been thinking a lot about waiting lately, as I wait for my Covid-19 test results to come back. Waiting is tough, and I’ve had to reach out to God over and over, day after day, with nothing much to offer but my concerns about my family, my health & others, begging for peace & healing. I’ve discovered that focusing on waiting often distracts us from the gift that is now, this moment in time.
This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24
I find I have to repent from the way I’ve been waiting. At times I have allowed waiting to paralyze me: to keep me from rejoicing in God – who is alway worthy of my praise; to keep me from loving those in my home well as I’ve allowed stress to make me irritable; from spending quality time reading the Bible and really soaking in what His word says to me.
Even though life is full of waiting, the Bible doesn’t tell us that we should wait on our circumstances to change, but on God Himself. (Psalm 130:5-6, Psalm 33). Waiting on God moves our focus from ourselves, and on to the One who loves us so much that He didn’t spare His son for us.
Shannon Mann