Monday's Musings - On Waiting

Waiting - it's got to be one of the most challenging of the spiritual disciplines. 

This thought has been brought to my mind recently with the actions of advent. Many families have the tradition of setting up the nativity, but leaving the Baby Jesus out till Christmas Eve, as a practice of waiting and anticipation. It also reminds us that we wait for His second coming with anticipation. This earth groans as we realize that we are in the "already, but not yet" of waiting for the final consumation of our salvation and His kingship.

But we also wait for specific things in our daily lives. 

While we wait, we still have to practice the other spiritual disciplines, like having faith, like guarding our attitudes and tongues. We still have to pray, even while waiting for the answer to a prayer that we've been praying and agonizing over for a long time but the only answer we're getting right now is "wait."

Waiting is not just sitting on our thumbs; it is still active. It is still trusting, working, going on with life as an act of faith. It is remembering that God is good and He desires good for us. It is picking myself up after a bout of tears and trusting that the pain is for my good as I wait for that answer of "yes," or see a different, better answer than that for which I'd longed.

Using my heavily taped up, old-fashioned Strong's Concordance, I see many instances in the Bible of the use of the word "wait." Frequently it's used to talk about waiting on the Lord, meaning "to expect." It also can mean "to scrutinize, to expect with patience and hope." Another aspect of the waiting can be "to travail." And often that latter aspect is what we feel, like Mary must have felt that night she gave birth.

And so we have faith that the travailing in waiting will bring forth great reward from the One who loves us and wants to give us the best.

Lover of  All, I hold me fast by Thee,

Ruler of time, King of Eternity

There is no great with Thee, there is no small,

For Thou art all, and fillest all in all.

The newborn world swings forth at Thy command,

The falling dewdrop falls into Thy hand.

God of the firmament's mysterious powers

I see Thee thread the minutes of my hours.