How do you wait well for something, especially if you are as impatient as I am? I spent a day praying and reflecting on precisely this topic. It’s hard to wait well when you want something so much.
I spent most of the time asking “What should I do?” to wait well. I came up with a great list of things, including using this time well and enjoying the things I can do. It was a great list, but it wasn’t what God wanted to say to me.
It hit me suddenly, almost as if I had heard an audible voice. God wants me to rest in his grace. Waiting isn’t about doing. It isn’t about achieving something. God wants me to know how much he loves me, he wants me to curl up at his feet, to listen to him and enjoy his words and the time I spend with him. His grace is sufficient.
In my mind I have justified my waiting because I have been sure that God wanted to teach me something, or use me for something. When this was complete then I would get pregnant. The result would be a reward for my faithfulness. In my darker moments I’ve also seen the prolonged waiting as punishment for not being obedient or not learning something. It’s much easier to work your way through a to-do list, to do something, than it is to accept grace.
Maybe that is what ‘God is in the waiting’ actually means: not that I have something to learn, or something to do, but that God is here, with me.
God is waiting with me, feeling my hopes and my disappointments, listening to my fears, my anger and my grief, and wiping away my tears.
I want this process to be useful. I want to learn something, I want my story to help others. I want to see people turn to Jesus as I have. I still want that, but I’ve come to realize that this isn’t why we’re waiting. Waiting well doesn’t mean looking to see what God can do in and through me. Waiting well means resting in God’s grace. Remembering that God loves me for who I am, not for what I do.
0 Comments