Women of the Advent | February 9, 2021

As a mother, special education teacher, and speech-language pathologist, I can often be overheard telling children “We are going to have to wait.”  As the wait time increases those children inevitably begin to get a bit restless, and I say, “Remember we have to wait. Sometimes it is hard to wait, but we need to learn to wait patiently.” This is a great lesson for children of all ages, but in reality it is an important skill for all of us – young and old alike! It takes practice and constant reminding to develop the skill of waiting patiently. Even then, it is hard to do. In our waiting, it is helpful to remember the words of Psalm 27:14, when in conclusion David says, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” David was no stranger to waiting. If you recall, David was anointed king at the age of 16, but he didn’t become king until he was 30.  That’s a lot of years of waiting and wondering if God had forgotten his promise.    

Recently, the Lord has been telling me “the time is not now,” which can be translated to “I just need to wait.” This isn’t the first time that I have heard the Lord tell me “the time is not now,” so I have the perspective of knowing how much better the end result can be when I wait for God’s timing. However, in the world of instant gratification in which we live, it is often hard to wait, especially to wait patiently for the Lord’s timing.  Daily, I am practicing waiting patiently and asking God to help me to seek the lessons he is showing me while I wait. The lessons are mainly of peace, contentment, patience, relinquishing control, and trusting his sovereignty.

Maybe you can relate to this need to just wait. Waiting comes in many forms: waiting in line, waiting on the phone, waiting for the right time to _____ (you fill in the blank), waiting on test results, waiting on the wayward child to find peace in the Lord, waiting on love, waiting on the vaccine, waiting to come back inside the church. Some instances of waiting are easier than others, but no waiting is fun. One reason that waiting is hard is that we are not in control. We are at the mercy of someone else.  Waiting can be long. Waiting can be painful – both physically and mentally. Waiting can be lonely. Waiting can be a time of growth or of pruning. No matter what waiting is for you in this moment and in those moments that are to come, rest assured that when our hope is in Jesus we can trust in his sovereignty and in his love for us. Call on Jeramiah’s words in Lamentations 3:24-26: “I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion therefore I will wait for him.’  The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”

“It’s the getting there…”  We use this line in my family on repeat. It was my great-grandmother’s line, and it is a good one. It can be applied to almost any and all situations of life. Whenever life seems particularly hard and the waiting is especially tiresome, I will pull out her words. Because I know Jesus Christ as my savior, I know that the preverbal “it” is going to be okay, but often times the “getting there” is what is so hard. There is a lot of heartache in the in-between. The waiting and the worrying between the here and now and the what’s to come or the not yet can create a palpable tension. The tension is real, and yet when we look to the Lord each day in our waiting, he will give us a reminder that he is in control. He is in the midst of the waiting, and he is in the midst of the outcome.

Your sister in Christ,
Caroline Springfield