4 Ways to Wait Well
We’re all waiting for something. If you’re not waiting now, you have been and will be again in the future. It’s a (frustrating?) fact of life. If waiting is part of life, then we have to learn how to wait well: how to wait with purpose and with our hope set in the right place. Waiting is hard, especially when suffering is front and center. And yet, we see in scripture that person after person waited for this thing or that thing, sometimes for more than double my age.
If waiting is part of life, the question has to change from “how long is this going to last” to “how do I wait for what is to come well”. Here are 4 ways we can actively wait:
We wait, rehearsing the character of God and what that means for us until we actually believe it.
When we know the character of God, it changes everything. Many times, we have to untangle who God truly is (what the Bible says) from all the loud and competing voices and influences that want to tell us how we should think about God. Sometimes the lies have dug in so deep it takes years to see them and even more years of work to correct them.
For years, deep down, I’ve believed that God was a little narcissistic and only wanted me for what He could get from me, and that He didn’t actually care for me aside from what I could do for Him. And this felt dangerous.
So, every day, multiple times a day, I recite this to myself to drown out those other voices with the truth of who God is and what and who that makes me:
He is my joy, He is my peace. He is my hope, He is my strength. He is my healer, He is my provider. He is my purpose, He is my treasure.
I am loved by God. I am safe in His arms. I am valuable because He made me. I am whole because of the cross.
Reflect: reflect on what things you believe about God that are untrue (i.e. He doesn’t care for me, He isn’t actually sovereign, etc). Find biblical proof to counter the lies you most often gravitate towards and create a short statement of the truth. Keep it somewhere handy (I use my phone lock screen) and rehearse the truths over and over again until it comes to mind more naturally than the lies.
We wait, with thanksgiving for God’s mercy towards us through Christ.
In order to be thankful for the sacrifice of Christ, we have to first acknowledge the gravity of our sin. I don’t think this comes naturally- we want to be right and for the things we love and want to do to be ok.
For many months (and I must confess, still sometimes now), I couldn’t see how my sin was a bigger problem than my physical suffering. For the entire month of June, I prayed that God would show me my sin so I could understand the gravity of His sacrifice. A solid month later, God started to show me, bit by bit.
Confession is a lost art but so necessary. It allows us to see the gravity of our sin and then to begin to grasp accept God’s mercy towards us, which helps us to see things in perspective.
Reflect: Pray Psalm 139:23-24 daily. Eventually, in His timing, the Holy Spirit will convict you of where you need to repent. When He does, confess and repent, then rest in the forgiveness of Christ’s sacrifice (1 John 1:9).
We wait, trusting that the Spirit will help us in and for each moment of every day.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard the Holy Spirit mentioned maybe 5 times in sermons over the years. But only mentioned, never explained. Never told that He is accessible and real and present and close every. single. moment. That He’s interceding on my behalf all the time. He’s not called The Helper for nothing!
Even in the times where we are just trying to survive from one moment to the next, the Spirit is there in us, helping us from one moment to the next. We are promised that He will teach us and remind us of what Jesus said (Jn 14:26-27), help us in our weakness and intercede for us (Rom 8:26-27), and give us the words to say when we are in trouble (Mt 10:19-20).
Reflect: If the Holy Spirit is a new or mysterious concept for you like it was for me, try two things.
1) Read Forgotten God by Francis Chan.
2) Set an alarm on your phone for a few times a day to remind you that the Holy Spirit is with you, and take a minute to pray and ask for help and direction.
We wait, knowing that this is not all there is- that the perfection we long for now is still yet to come.
Most often, we’re probably waiting and longing for something that we can’t actually get here on earth. We’re waiting for a circumstance to pass and all to be right again, or to find the perfect person or thing that will fill the emptiness, or to finally have abundant resources so we don’t have to fear depletion. But those things can never perfectly be the case while sin is still a thing.
And yet.
We can have hope because the perfection and the healing and the fullness and the abundance we long for WILL come in a more perfect form than we could ever imagine when Christ returns. No more pain. No more tears. New bodies. Getting to be in the presence of the Creator of true perfection.
Reflect: find a few scriptures that tell about what is to come, and memorize one of them so you can remind yourself often that the best is yet to come.
Here’s to active waiting, friends.
(And in the spirit of authenticity, it’s worth noting that I cried at breakfast today because waiting can be so hard.)
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time
we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9
I’m listening to…
→ This Christmas Classics playlist
→ This Instrumental Christmas playlist
I’m reading…
→ Richard Paul Evans’ Christmas Short Story Books
I’m loving…
The. best. ever.
I’m quoting…
Wash the plate not because it is dirty nor because you are told to wash it, but because you love the person who will use it next.
-Mother Teresa
I’m cooking…
→ Snickerdoodle Breakfast Cereal
Serves 2
Another childhood recipe recreation, with a Christmas twist.
2 cups cooked rice
1 cup milk
1 T butter
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t salt
Add everything to a saucepan. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer. Cook for 10ish minutes, stirring regularly until thickened.