Abraham and Sarah, Parents at Last! –Image generated with A.I.
Have you ever had to wait just–forever? It’s tough, isn’t it? You wait in line. You wait on the phone. You wait for summer. You wait for vacations, marriage, careers, promotions. As children, our experience of waiting for Christmas morning is so universal it has become a cliche: Slow as Christmas. Everyone knows what it feels like to wait. But some of us have spent decades in the crucible of waiting.
Noah hammered away for what some believe to have been one hundred years, all the time waiting, and no doubt wondering, what rain and flooding was all about.
Abraham waited 25 years for the birth of the son he was promised. –And that is assuming he did not start waiting until he was 75. Personally, I bet that by age 75 he and his wife had already waited so long they had given up on children. The two spent six or seven decades wrestling with the pain and hopelessness of barrenness.
Moses spent forty years herding sheep in the wilderness. Can you imagine the thoughts in his head as he approached his 80th birthday, a no-account old man wandering the desert with his father-in-law’s sheep? I had all the education and languages and loyalty to rescue the Hebrews, but I failed and God banished me to waste my life in the desert.
What about David? He was anointed king at about age fifteen. He quickly proved himself by killing Goliath. He became a high-ranking military officer, a gifted tactician on the battlefield–and then he waited. And waited, while Saul chased him around Israel trying to murder him. And David honored God and the king by not killing Saul, though he had several opportunities and plenty of well-meaning advisors telling him to do it. Fifteen years passed before he finally took the throne. (We condemn David for the failures that came later, but imagine the dark turn his life would have taken if he had murdered Saul when he had the chance.)
My favorite is Joseph, of course. (He is my favorite in many categories.) What a life of integrity. He was sold into slavery at 17 and spent most of the next thirteen years in prison. But he was faithful to God and God raised him to second-in-command when he was 30.
Finally, there is Rachel, the favorite wife of Jacob. She was barren, and only after her sister Leah had given Jacob six sons and a daughter, did Rachel finally become pregnant.
“And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb. And she conceived, and bare a son. And said, ‘God hath taken away my reproach.’ And she called his name Joseph, and said, ‘the Lord shall add to me another son’” Genesis 30:22-24.
God heard Rachel’s prayers. Of course He did. God knew she was hurting, and He showed compassion on her and blessed her with Joseph and then Benjamin. The Lord “took away her reproach,” removing forever the shame Rachel felt because she was barren.
If you are waiting for God to show up in your life, consider these two verses:
“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices” Psalm 37:7.
Be patient and don’t let the success of others make you anxious. Fret not. Instead, be still before the Lord. Tell Him about your prayers, your hopes, your unfulfilled dreams. But be still and fret not.
“Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains” James 5:7.
Do you have the patience of a farmer? Can you settle down, calm yourself, and be still? Can you sit in the shade on a blazing sunny day and trust God to send the rain?
I believe God chooses different people for different kinds of struggles. One of mine is the struggle of waiting. But I remember Moses and his forty years in the desert with only sheep to talk to.
I think of Joseph who had such a special bond with his father, but spent years in a dark, rat-filled dungeon, though all he had ever done was act with integrity.
I encourage myself by remembering David and his fifteen years on the run from Saul.
And I think of Hannah, who finally had a son, Samuel, then almost immediately handed him over to be raised by Eli the priest.
And most of all, I remember the JOY: Abraham and Sarah’s JOY over the birth of Isaac, David’s JOY over the kingdom, Joseph’s JOY when he was reunited with his brothers and his father, Hannah’s JOY when God gave her a son. Moses’s JOY when God called him–though he was reluctant–and God gave the old man’s life an incredible mission and purpose.
“The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, He is patient…” 2 Peter 3:9.
AΩ.
* You know what verse people love on waiting? “They that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength…” Isaiah 40:31. That is a great verse but the word ‘wait’ in this context does not seem to mean wait in the sense of time passing so much as it means trusting, hoping, or depending. If you depend on the Lord, He will renew your strength.
** The title comes from the chorus of “The Waiting” by Tom Petty:
The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you get one more yard
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part.
Household Words: 