Waiting
“So am I still waiting
For this world to stop hating
Can't find a good reason
Can't find hope to believe in”
-Sum 41, “Still Waiting”
“The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part”
-Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, “The Waiting”
God and I have been talking about waiting lately. The pace at work has occasionally visited “hurry up and wait”, so I wait for work to calm down. Often, I need some answers at work, so I wait for people to answer my questions or I'm waiting to pin them down to ask questions. Someone asked if I liked the Friday night church service and I said I did but was waiting to see what God was doing in me. I know that God still has stuff to do in me, but I feel like I'm waiting for Him to point it out. Life is about waiting.
Songs are about waiting. I quoted a couple that I've had stuck in my head this week, but there are others. No Doubt didn't quite make the cut this time, sorry.
Proverbs 13:12 says “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” (NASB) “A pot watched never boils” is a common saying – waiting and watching only winds you up more. We all know the value of delayed gratification and how needing something now can harm or even destroy your life.
Life is about waiting.
In some parts of my walk with God, I'm waiting because I have no option. God has parked me in a place and said “Stay and learn.” OK, so maybe the “and learn” part is implied.
In other parts of my life, I'm choosing purposely to wait. Like the children in the study, I believe that if I wait long enough, instead of the one marshmallow I occasionally see, God will give me two.
You know, the funny part is what if I didn't hear God when he said “Here, I brought this for you” and I wait and it goes stale? Whose fault would that be? No, I'm pretty sure I'm not ignoring God but sometimes I wonder if I'm listening as well as I should be.
Maybe, like Krissi says, impatience should be a virtue. Matthew 11:12 says “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” (KJV) Sometimes you really do have to “meet God halfway”. Maybe you should rise up and grab what God hath given thee with both hands.
Deciding what I have to wait for, what I should wait for, and what I should lay hold on is a nontrivial endeavor. One teaching that helps is something I got from some book long ago about something entirely different: Set rules up ahead of time, then sort according to those rules. It's similar to the philosophy of GTD (Getting Things Done): form a system, then process everything according to that system. Already in the last two months, “having a system” redirected my path from an unhealthy road at least once. Even though that system is still very much in flux.
I was talking to God tonight about waiting and being frustrated. He pointed out that I had the wrong perspective. Pretend that life is an uphill journey. Not uphill like “there's never an end”, but uphill like “you're constantly climbing to a better place than where you've been”. I keep thinking of my life as following God one step at a time. Sometimes I stop and rest between steps, and that's OK. Then, however, I take another step and expect it to be the one onto the escalator that eases my burden while bringing me closer to God. God says that's not the way it's supposed to go. Instead, it's more like hiking a 14er. You take one step, then another, then a dozen more. If you look towards the summit, it looks forever far away. When you look back, though, you see just how much higher you are than the last time you stopped to catch your breath.
Though I can't see the summit of my life, God's “overall plan” for me, God wants me to be OK with that. I can't count the number of steps left to go until I “arrive” (whatever that means), but that isn't supposed to matter. What I can do is turn around and look back and see the change in my life. I may not be the man God intends me to be someday but I'm sure not the man I used to be. And that is a change for the better, no matter how you measure it.
What do you think? What's worth waiting for in life?
For this world to stop hating
Can't find a good reason
Can't find hope to believe in”
-Sum 41, “Still Waiting”
“The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part”
-Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, “The Waiting”
God and I have been talking about waiting lately. The pace at work has occasionally visited “hurry up and wait”, so I wait for work to calm down. Often, I need some answers at work, so I wait for people to answer my questions or I'm waiting to pin them down to ask questions. Someone asked if I liked the Friday night church service and I said I did but was waiting to see what God was doing in me. I know that God still has stuff to do in me, but I feel like I'm waiting for Him to point it out. Life is about waiting.
Songs are about waiting. I quoted a couple that I've had stuck in my head this week, but there are others. No Doubt didn't quite make the cut this time, sorry.
Proverbs 13:12 says “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” (NASB) “A pot watched never boils” is a common saying – waiting and watching only winds you up more. We all know the value of delayed gratification and how needing something now can harm or even destroy your life.
Life is about waiting.
In some parts of my walk with God, I'm waiting because I have no option. God has parked me in a place and said “Stay and learn.” OK, so maybe the “and learn” part is implied.
In other parts of my life, I'm choosing purposely to wait. Like the children in the study, I believe that if I wait long enough, instead of the one marshmallow I occasionally see, God will give me two.
You know, the funny part is what if I didn't hear God when he said “Here, I brought this for you” and I wait and it goes stale? Whose fault would that be? No, I'm pretty sure I'm not ignoring God but sometimes I wonder if I'm listening as well as I should be.
Maybe, like Krissi says, impatience should be a virtue. Matthew 11:12 says “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” (KJV) Sometimes you really do have to “meet God halfway”. Maybe you should rise up and grab what God hath given thee with both hands.
Deciding what I have to wait for, what I should wait for, and what I should lay hold on is a nontrivial endeavor. One teaching that helps is something I got from some book long ago about something entirely different: Set rules up ahead of time, then sort according to those rules. It's similar to the philosophy of GTD (Getting Things Done): form a system, then process everything according to that system. Already in the last two months, “having a system” redirected my path from an unhealthy road at least once. Even though that system is still very much in flux.
I was talking to God tonight about waiting and being frustrated. He pointed out that I had the wrong perspective. Pretend that life is an uphill journey. Not uphill like “there's never an end”, but uphill like “you're constantly climbing to a better place than where you've been”. I keep thinking of my life as following God one step at a time. Sometimes I stop and rest between steps, and that's OK. Then, however, I take another step and expect it to be the one onto the escalator that eases my burden while bringing me closer to God. God says that's not the way it's supposed to go. Instead, it's more like hiking a 14er. You take one step, then another, then a dozen more. If you look towards the summit, it looks forever far away. When you look back, though, you see just how much higher you are than the last time you stopped to catch your breath.
Though I can't see the summit of my life, God's “overall plan” for me, God wants me to be OK with that. I can't count the number of steps left to go until I “arrive” (whatever that means), but that isn't supposed to matter. What I can do is turn around and look back and see the change in my life. I may not be the man God intends me to be someday but I'm sure not the man I used to be. And that is a change for the better, no matter how you measure it.
What do you think? What's worth waiting for in life?
posted by The student of life at 1:04 AM
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